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CORRESPONDENCE 



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BURNS AND CLARINDA. 



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MRS M'LEHOSE, (CLARINDA.) 



ARRANGED AND EDITED BY HER GRANDSON, 

W. C. M'LEHOSE. . 




NEW-YORK 
ROBERT P. BIXBY & CO. 

No. 3 Park Row, opposite the Astor House 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, 

By BIXBY& Co., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of 

New-York, 



hsw-tork: 

JOHN F. TRO-vr & CO., FRINTSK9, 

No. 33 Ann-street. 









AMERICAN PREFACE. 



The Editor of this work, who is an adopted 
citizen of the United States of America, having 
returned on a visit to his native country, Scotland, 
has occupied a portion of his time in preparing for 
the press the correspondence of his relative, Mrs. 
M'Lehose, with the Poet Burns, together with her 
Memoirs, &:.c., and has made arrangements for 
publishing the work in both countries. 

Full particulars relative to the custody and 
authenticity of the correspondence, and the state of 
preservation of the original manuscripts, being given 
in the English preface, there only remains one point 
on which explanation seems requisite. 

The Editor resided in the State of Massachusetts 
in the years 1840 and 41, and his friend, the Hon. 
W. G. Rales, being a member of the Legislature, 
presented a petition on his behalf for authority to 
change his name. The Secretary of State's certifi- 
cate (a copy of which is appended) shows the result 
of the application. But the Editor's family name 



IV AMERICAN PREFACE. 

appears on the title page of the English edition, be- 
cause the publisher was of opinion that the family 
name, by which the Editor was known in Scotland for 
the greater part of his life, was necessary to authen- 
ticate the work. 

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, 

Secretary of State's Office, July 14, 1842. 
I hereby certify, that by an act of the Legislature of 
this Commonwealth, approved by the Governor March 
17, 1841, entitled, " An act to change the names ol' the 
several persons therein named," William C. M'Lehose, 
of Westfield, in the County of Hampden, and formerly of 
Scotland, was authorized to assume fully and be known 
only by the name of William Lonsdale, and that here- 
after he is to be recognized by that name only as his legal 
and proper one. 

Witness the Seal of the State, the date first above 
written. 

(Signed,) Johx P. Bigelow, 

Secretary of the Commonwealth. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.-STATE OF NEW-YORK. 

City and County > 
of New- York. ^ 

Be it remembered that on the first day of February, 

in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 

ibrty-two, William Lonsdale, of said city, appeared in 



AMERICAN PREFACE. V 

the Court of Common Pleas for the City and County of 
New- York, (the said court being a court of record, 
having common law jurisdiction, and a clerk and seal,) 
and applied to the said court to be admitted to become a 
citizen of the United States of America, pursuant to the 
direction of the act of Congress of the United States of 
America, entitled, " An act to establish an uniform rule of 
naturalization," &c., [here various acts are recited,] and 
the said applicant having thereupon produced to the 
court such evidence, made such declaration and renun- 
ciation, and taken such oaths as are by the said act re- 
quired : thereupon it was ordered by the said court, that 
the said applicant be admitted, and he was accordingly 
admitted to be a citizen of the United States of America. 
In testimony whereof, the seal of the said court is 
hereunto afRxed, this first day of February, in the sixty- 
sixth year of the independence of the United States. 
Per Curiam, 
(Signed,) Nath'l. Jar vis, Clerk. 



PREFACE. 



The correspondence of Burns and Clarinda has 
often been sought for, of late years, with the view of 
publication. Among others, Allan Cunningham, in 
the year 1834, when publishing his edition of the Life 
and Works of the Poet, made an unsuccessful appli- 
cation. Mrs. M'Lehose, in a letter, dated 16th July, 
1834, declined Mr. Cunningham's request, and gave 
the following account of the original surreptitious 
appearance of a portion of the letters of Burns : — 

" Mrs. James Gray, then Miss Peacock, and Mr. 
Grahame, the author of ' The Sabbath,' (two of my 
most valued and lamented friends,) applied to me on 
behalf of a literary gentleman of the name of Finlay, 
who was then engaged in writing a Life of the Poet, 
for permission to make a few extracts from the Let- 
ters to enrich his Life. This was unfortunately 
granted ; and the Letters lent to Mr. Finlay by Mr. 
Grahame, under this express condition, that a few 



Vlll PREFACE. 

extracts inserted in the Life was the sole permission 
granted to him. Besides making this use of the 
Letters, Mr. Finlay gave permission to a bookseller 
to publish all the Letters which had been intrusted 
to him, and added, most falsely, in an advertisement 
prefixed to them, that this was done with my per- 
mission, (* condescension,' as he termed it;) and that 
the editor was vested with the sole powder to publish 
these Letters. Nothing could be more contrary to 
truth." 

Allan Cunningham, when preparing the last vol- 
umes of his edition, wrote Mrs. M'Lehose as follows : 
" I am now arranging the materials for the remain- 
ing two volumes, and feel that I want your aid. 
Without the Letters of Clarinda the works of Burns 
wdll be incomplete. I wish to publish them at the 
beginning of the eighth volume, with a short intro- 
duction, in which their scope and aim will be charac- 
terized. You will oblige me, and delight your 
country, by giving permission for this. I will do it 
with all due tenderness. I have a high respect for 
your character and talents, and wish you to reflect, 
that the world will in time have a full command 
over the Letters, and that ruder hands than mine 



PREFACE. IX 

will likely deal with them : my wish is for an oppor- 
tunity to give an accredited edition of the Corres- 
pondence to the public, and give a right notion of 
their object and aim, while I have it so much in my 
power." 

A reviewer, who was intimately acquainted with 
Clarinda for many years, in noticing Allan Cunning- 
ham's edition, thus writes : — " It is to be regretted 
that the letters to Clarinda are not embraced in this 
collection ; but Mr. Cunningham's explanation on 
this subject is quite satisfactory. We agree with him, 
that the letters in question are particularly valuable; 
and cannot but think that it is from some misappre- 
hension, Clarinda has declined to sanction their pub- 
lication We are certain that they could have no such 
tendency as is feared : the justness of which opinion, 
we are sure, will at once be acknowledged by all 
who have the pleasure of knowing the estimable 
lady to whom they were addressed." 

Mrs. M'Lehose originally refused Mr. Syme (who 
collected for Dr. Currie) permission to publish the 
Letters, and declined, as has been already stated, 
various similar applications in her latter years. But 
the present editor is of opinion, that the time is now 



X PREFACE. 

come for their publication, and that an authentic 
edition of the Correspondence will have the effect of 
removing prejudice, will do honour to the memory of 
his respected relative, and interest the public, by 
giving them a new chapter in the life of our immor- 
tal poet. This interest, too, is increased by the con- 
sideration that these letters are probably the last 
original compositions of his which will ever be made 
public. 

In reading the Correspondence of Burns and Cla- 
rinda, the reader will perceive, that several of her 
letters, and perhaps three or four of /m, are wanting, 
and that, in those published, various passages are 
short-coming. A brief explanation, in relation to 
their custody, is therefore deemed necessary. This 
seems the more called for, when it is recollected 
that, in 1797, Ciarinda wrote to Mr. Syme, that she 
never would suffer one of them (the letters of Burns) 
^to perish. Ciarinda survived forty-four years ; and 
it is perhaps a matter of surprise, that the Letters 
should have been so well preserved, and so few lost 
in such a long time. 

In some of the Poet's letters, pieces have been 
cut out, to gratify (it is supposed) collectois of 



PREFACE. XI 

autographs, as it is well known that Mrs. M'Lehose 
was much harassed with such applications: they 
are, besides, much torn, which was incidental to 
the frequent handling of them, for they were exhib- 
ited to gratify the curiosity of visitors. These are 
the sole causes of a few blanks being observable in 
the letters. The editor has an implicit belief that 
none were destroyed or suppressed by Mrs. M'Le- 
hose, or by her son, the lale Mr. A. C. M'Lehose, 
W. S. 

On the death of the latter, in April 1839, there 
was found in his repositories a bundle of papers, 
containing all the letters of Sylvander now pub- 
lished, and a small portion of those of Clarinda. 
These were taken possession of by Mr. G. H. 
Pattison, advocate, on behalf of the editor, who 
was then resident abroad. Very soon after Mrs. 
M'Lehose's death, a law-agent in this city, who 
acted for her under some sort of authority in the 
two years and a half which intervened between 
her son's death and her own, removed from her 
repositories, which had been sealed up on the day 
of her funeral, all her private papers. The autho- 
rity from Mrs. M'Lehose, such as it was, came to 



Xll PREFACE. 

an end by her death, and the removal of her papers 
was effected without warrant of any kind. Two 
boxes of these papers were dehvered up to the 
editor, on his arrival in this country, in the spring 
of 1842^ and, at some interval of time afterwards, 
several of Clarinda's letters were sent to him, with 
the apology, that they had fallen out of a box or 
press. It is curious that the only letters, which so 
fell out of a box or press, were several of Clarinda's 
letters to Burns, and the draft of a letter in which 
she declined sitting for her portrait for some of the 
poet's admirers. 

The editor can only further express his belief, 
that Mr. Pattison gave up to him the letters which 
he took charge of, in the same condition in which 
he found them in Mr. M'Lehose's repositories ; and 
declare that he himself has given to the public all 
he received. 

The editor takes this opportunity of rendering 
his best thanks to Mr. Robert Chambers and Mr. 
Pattison, for the useful suggestions which they have 
made, and the valuable assistance given in arrang- 
ing the materials, and revising them for the pi ess. 



C0ITEIT3 or THE COMESPOraiCE. 



LETTER I. — Sylvander to Clarixda. 
Regrets that he did not know her sooner. Encloses a 
few lines of poetry. Would feel mortified at being 
forgotten by her, ....... 79 

LETTER IL— Sylvaxder to Clarixda. 

Had determined to cultivate her acquaintance ; but a 
fall from a coach prevents his visiting her at present, 80 

LETTER IIL— Clari.vda to Sylvander. 

Trusts he will soon recover. He must not leave town 
without seeing her. Has often composed rhyme, but 
not poetry. Wishes all the poetry he can spare, . 82 

LETTER IV.— Sylvander to Ceari.vda. 

Writes in agony. Her lines are good poetry Knows 
not where the God of Love would have led him, if he 
had known her earlier, ...... 85 

LETTER v.— Clarixda to Sylvaxder. 

Chides him for addressing a married woman in such a 
romantic style. Could he, Jacob-like, wait seven 
years .' Wishes she were the Duchess of Gordon, to 
give him solid proofs of friendship, ... 86 

LETTER VI.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is startled at the idea of paying his addresses to a 
married woman. If his heart went a little astray, 
hopes she wont condemn him without benefit of cler- 
gy. Replies to her raillery of seven years, . 38 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER VII. — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Has read one of her poetical pieces to Dr. Gregory. 
Loves her for her taste for poesy. Likes the idea of 
Arcadian names in their correspondence. Wishes her 
to have a just idea of his character. Describes it. She 
made a strong impression on him at their first inter- 
view. Says he deserved most of his unhappy hours. 
Wonders why her cup of life was dashed with sorrow, 91 

LETTER VIII.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Is elated by Dr. Gregory's praises. Is not unhappy ; 
religion has been her balm in every wo. Sends a po- 
etical simile, . . . . . . 96 

LETTER IX.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Has met a lady who would have made a better Cla- 
rinda than herself. Will not find fault with his loving 
her for her taste for poesy. Agrees with him in think- 
ing that friendship between the sexes must have a lit- 
tle softness. They were born the same year, and, she 
thinks, thrown off by Nature in the same mould. 
Providence chastised her for her good, Hopes they 
will meet in a future state, where there will be scope 
for every heartfelt affection, ..... 98 

LETTER X. — Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Sends the verses beginning " Talk not of Love," &c. 
Wishes to know if he is well enough to visit her in a 
coach, ......... 105 

LETTER XI. — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is delighted with her last verses. He is not well 
enough to visit her, even in a coach. His first visit 
shall be to her, ....... 107 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER XII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Reveres her religious sentiments. Never ridiculed 
real religion. Thinks that we sometimes exchange 
faults rather than get rid of them. Defines worth. 
Grudges heaven totally engrossing Clarinda. Intends 
inserting her verses " Talk not of Love," &c., in the 
Scots Musical Museum. Proposes giving her the first 
call next day, ....... 108 

LETTER XIII.— Sylvander TO Clarinda. 

Admires the character of Satan in " Milton's Paradise 
Lost." Sends her the autobiographical letter he ad- 

" dressed to Dr. Moore, ..... 114 

LETTER XIV.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 
His letter to Dr. Moore deeply affected her. Finds 
no trace of friendship to a female in it. Regrets his 
being an enemy to Calvinism. Believes in Calvinism 
herself, one or two dark tenets excepted. Wishes to 
know his objections. Advises him to resolve against 
wedlock, ..... . 116 

LETTER XV.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Prefers a pious to a lukewarm female. States the out- 
lines of his religious belief. Alludes to a female, 
whose happiness is twisted with the threads of his ex- 
istence. Clarinda must not guess who. Has been 
spending the evening with sordid souls who could re- 
lish nothing in common with him, but Port, . 121 

LETTER XVI.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Can relish most things in common with him, except 
Port. Conjectures that he alludes to his Jean. He 
had Clarinda's good wishes before they met. Thinks 



CONTENTS OF I HE CORRESPONDENCE. 



PAGE 

they have more of the eagle and turtle-dove, than of 
the cart-horse, 125 

LETTER XVII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is distracted at not having seen her. Declares she 
has converted him. Is glad that, in his last letter, he 
did not let some fatal information escape. His friend- 
ships, both strong and eternal, .... 129 

LETTER XVIIL— Clarinda to Svlvander. 
Inquires how she has converted him. Regrets his in- 
timacy with a man of bad character. Wishes to know 
if Bishop Geddes remembers meeting her, . . 132 

LETTER XIX.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Religion his favourite topic. Hates controversial di- 
vinity. Deprecates her censure. Cherishes the maxim, 
" Reverence thyself," . . . 137 

LETTER XX.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Hopes she will forgive unguarded expressions in his 
last letter, 139 

LETTER XXI. — Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Was delighted with their last meeting. Fears she was 
too unreserved. Relates her interview with Lord 
Napier's sister. States her sentiments on religion. 
Sylvander must not be proud to her, . . . 140 

LETTER XXII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Condemns the poetry of Elphinstone. Sends an epi- 
gram on him. Next week, must sing, "The night is 
my departing night." Is partial to the use of quota- 
tions, 145 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER XXIII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 
Was enraptured with Clarinda at their last meeting. 
Thinks she is too sensitive. Believes that God ap- 
proves of sincere love and friendship. Looks forward ^ 
with pain to their separation, .... 148 

LETTER XXIV.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Francis Vulcan has lent hira the key of her heart. 
Thinks him the first of letter-writers. Hopes he will 
not visit her in a sedan chair. It would raise specula- 
tion among the neighbours. Elphinstone a pedant, 150 

LETTER XXV.— Sylvander TO Clarinda. 

Impertinence of visitors. Indisposition has depressed 
his spirits. Reflects on the mortality of man. Promi- 
ses Clarinda unalterable love and friendship. Expects 
an equal return. Indulges in a Mahometan vision of 
Heaven, 153 

LETTER XXVI.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Imagines that Fortune has attached him to Clarinda, 
that he may give her immortality, . . . 158 

LETTER XXVII.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Is capable of strong affection. Love has led her into 
many weaknesses. Wishes their parting over. Ab- 
sence will mellow their interest in each other. Has 
been too often guided by impulse, . . . 161 

LETTER XXVIII— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Appeals to her whether he trespassed against the 
spirit of Decorum. Feels stung by her reproaches. 
Is pained at the idea of having wounded her feelings, 166 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER XXIX.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Proposes paying her a visit with Mr. Ainslie, . 169 

I»E3'TER XXX.— SvLVANDER TO Clarinda. 

His 'Srfnscnption on Stirling Palace" has injured his 
prospects. Schetki has composed an air for the song, 
" Clarinda, mistress of my Soul," . , . 170 

LETTER XXXI.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Confesses to her Clergyman that she feels " a tender 
impression" for Sylvander. Wishes him to shelter 
his love in the garb of friendship, . . . 172 

LETTER XXXII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Loathes the malignant passions of human nature. 
Prays for himself and Clarinda. Quotes some lines 
on religion, ........ 179 

LETTER XXXIII.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

He must be satisfied with her " tenderest friendship." 
Their youthful tastes were much alike. Wishes the 
scenes of nature to remind him of Clarinda. Fears 
that a friend, wlio has been kind to her, feels a pre- 
possession, which she cannot return, . . . 182 

LETTER XXXIV.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

She possesses his soul. Proposes set times for medita- 
ting on her. Wants her miniature to wear as a breast- 
pin, 

LETTER XXXV.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Has sometimes suffered severely from unguardedness. 
Thinks Sylvander a friend who would die sooner than 
injure her. Encloses her lines "To a Blackbird." 



188 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



Explains some of her views on religion. Describes 
Lord Dreghorn's character, and conduct to her, - 190 

LETTER XXXVL— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

The children of misfortune, especially, need mutual 
esteem and reliance. Compares his own life to a tem- 
ple in ruins. Forms high resolves. She has refined 
his soul, ... . . ... 198 

LETTER XXXVIL— Sylvander to Clariisda. 

Has been disappointed in a return of affection from his 
fellow-creatures. Wishes to devote his love to God. 
Prays Heaven to bless his intercourse with Clarinda, 202 

LETTER XXXVHL— Sylvander to Clarinda. 
Dreads having offended her. Sends her a poem to 
read. Wishes to alleviate her sorrows, . 204 

LETTER XXXIX.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Fears Miss Peacock entertains admiration for Sylvan- 
der, too much akin to love, .... 205 

LETTER XL. — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Laughs at her fears. Considers Solomon was the 
" Spectator" of his day. Thinks the manners of the 
Court of Jerusalem very similar to that of London or 
Versailles. Dislikes both ancient and modern volup- 
tuaries, 208 

LETTER XLI. — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Cannot cease to love her Execrates the half-inch 
soul of an unfeeling Presbyterian bigot, . . 210 

LETTER XLIL — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is angry with a friend of Clarinda's, for endeavouring 

to dissolve their friendship, . . . 211 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER XLIII.— SvLVANDER TO Clarinda. 

Laments that he has deprived her of a fi-iend. Ad- 
vises her to call a little honest pride to her aid. 
Prays for her, 214 

LETTER XLIV.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Repeats his protestations of love and friendship, . 216 

LETTER XLV.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Requests her to be comforted. Refers to the jealousy 
of two of her prying friends. Recommends her not 
to answer their inquiries, 217 

LETTER XLVI.— Sylvander TO Clarinda. 

Assures her she will be always in his thoughts. 
Meets with an old friend, and his brother William, in 
Glasgow, , . . . . . . . 219 

LETTER XL VII.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

The friend, whose prepossession she could not return, 
hears of her attachment to Sylvander, and is cold in 
consequence. Wishes to introduce him to a young 
lady in Ayr, 221 

LETTER XLVITL— Sylvander TO Clarinda. 

Describes a day spent with Mr. Pattison, a zealous 
Anti-burgher, at Paisley. Mr. P. has struggled hard 
with the world and the flesh since his widowerhood. 
He consults Sylvander about marrying a young girl 
in his old age. Narrates his domestic troubles, . 226 

LETTER XLIX— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Is distressed at not hearing from him. Has seen Miss 
Burnet at an evening lecture. Admires her vastly, 229 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER L. — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Does not forget her. Is hurried with business and 
dissipation. Thinks of taking a farm. Offers her 
his wannest attachment and sincerest friendship, 232 

LETTER LL — Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Can hardly forgive his neglecting to write her. 
Thinks the pursuits of a farmer more suitable for him 
than the Excise, ....... 234 

LETTER LII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Complains of the savage hospitality of a friend. Its 
consequences. Moralizes on the unhappy and thought- 
less career of man, ...... 238 

LETTER LIII. — Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Defends himself against the reproach of unkindness. 
Urges her to call self-respect to aid her in defeating 
the petulance, the prejudices, or the weakness of her 
acquaintance, ....... 240 

LETTER LIV.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Thinks Mr. Pattison possessed of the Demons of Ava- 
rice and Impurity. Rejoices at being high in Sylvan- 
der's esteem. Young Beauties must not tempt him 
to forget her, , 245 

LETTER LV.— Sylvander to Clarkvda. 

Has received his Excise appointment. Expects soon 

to leave town, ....... 249 

LETTER LVI.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is anxious about his worldly prospects, . . 254 

LETTER LVII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

His Publisher delays his departure, . . . 252 



10 CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER LVIII. Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Intends to write her often, .... 253 

Verses addressed by Burns to Clarinda on leav- 
ing Edinburgh in Ajoril 1783, " Fair Empress of the 
Poet's Soul," 255 

LETTER LIX.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Cannot plead guilty to the accusation of perfidious 
treachery. Was not to blame in being the victim of 
Clarinda's charms, ...... 256 

LETTER LX.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Has been out of health all winter. A conjuncture 
of events have caused him to err. Sends her the 
Song, " My Lovely Nancy," .... 258 

LETTER LXL— Sylvander to Clarinda. 
Encloses Stanzas on " Sensibility," . . 260 

LETTER LXII.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 
Writes him in behalf of a dying Girl who had loved 
him, " not wisely, but too well," . . 262 

LETTER LXIII.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is deeply affected by the Girl's distress. Will afford 
her immediate relief, ...... 263 

LETTER LXIV.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Encloses his Ballad on Queen Mary, . . . 265 

LETTER LXV.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Has altered the Stanzas on " Sensibility," . . 268 

LETTER LXVL— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Sends Clarinda the three beautiful Songs, " Ae fond 
Kiss," « Behold the Hour," « Gloomy December," 270 



CONTENTS OF THE CORRESPONDENCE. 11 



LETTER LXVII.— Clarinda to Sylvander. 

Takes an affecting farewell of him on leaving for 
Jamaica. Gives parting advice. Is to sail in the 

' same^vessel he formerly intended crossing the Atlan- 
tic in, .. • -273 

Pastoral composed by the Poet on Clarinda's de- 
parture for the West Indies in 1792, " My Nannie's 
Awa," 276 

LETTER LXVIIL— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Is grieved that she has not informed him of her 
return to Europe. Wishes to renew their corres- 
pondence, 277 

LETTER LXIX.— Sylvander to Clarinda. 

Cannot write her an ordinary epistle of friendship. 
Envies an old friend the power of serving her. Con- 
soles himself by drinking her health in solitude and 
in company. Implores the blessings of Heaven upon 
her, 279 



MEMOIR OF MRS. .M'LEH<)SE., 

^^^ ■ — -+-H<' 

Mrs. M'Lehose, whose maiden name was Agnes 
Craig, was born in Glasgow in April 1759. She 
was the daughter of Mr. Andrew Craig, surgeon in 
that city — a gentleman of a good family. His 
brother was the Rev. William Craig, one of the 
ministers of Glasgow, and father of Lord Craig, a 
Judge of the Court of Sessions. The mother of Mrs. 
M'Lehose was a daughter of the Rev. John M'Lau- 
rin, — minister of Luss, and afterwards of St. David's, 
Glasgow, — well known as the author of a volume 
of sermons ; one of which, in particular, has always 
been viewed as a model of evangelical piety and 
pulpit eloquence. He was a brother of Cohn 
M'Laurin, the celebrated mathematician and friend 
of Sir Isaac Newton. 

Of the early years of Agnes Craig but little is 
recorded. She was so delicate in infancy, that it 
was hardly expected she would survive child- 

2 



14 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

hood. Yet of four daughters and a son, she alone 
reached old age : all died in childhood except her 
sister Margaret, who, at the age of nineteen, be- 
came the wife of Captain Kennedy of Kailzie, 
and died about a year afterwards. The education 
of Agnes Craig was very incomplete, as all female 
education was at that period, compared with the 
numerous advantages possessed by young people of 
both sexes in the present day. All the education 
bestowed upon her was some very imperfect in- 
struction in English grammar, and that laborious 
idleness called sampler work; even spelling was 
much neglected. The disadvantages attending such 
an education she afterwards fully perceived, and 
partially remedied at a period of life when many 
women neglect the attainments previously acquired, 
and but few persevere in the cultivation of further 
knowledge. 

Agnes lost her mother when she was only eight 
years old ; and her only surviving sister, Mrs. Ken- 
nedy, dying about five years afterwards, she was 
deprived of that compensation for a mother's in- 
valuable influence and superintendence which might 
have been derived from an elder sister's counsels. 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 15 

Her mother's instructions were not lost upon her ; 
for many years afterwards she referred with heart- 
felt gratitude to the benefits she derived from the 
rehgious principles instilled into her by her " sainted 
mother." Henceforward, till her marriage, she 
lived with her father, — except that, for half a year, 
when fifteen years old, she was sent to an Edin- 
burgh boarding-school to finish that education 
which could not be said to have been properly 
begun, and had no solid foundation : — a practice 
apparently prevalent in those days as well as now. 
This circumstance originated an acquaintance which 
ended in her marriage. Even at this early age, she 
was considered one of the beauties of Glasgow, and 
was styled " the pretty Miss Nancy." Mr. James 
M'Lehose, a young man of respectable connexions, 
and a law agent in that city, had been disappointed 
in getting introduced to her ; and when he learned 
that she was going to Edinburgh, he engaged all 
the seats in the stage-coach, excepting the one 
taken for her. At that period the coach took the 
whole day to perform the journey between the two 
cities, stopping a considerable time for dinner on the 
road, which thus afforded Mr. M'Lehose an excel- 



16 MEMOIR OF MRS. M*LEHOSE. 

lent opportunity of making himself agreeable — an 
opportunity which he took the utmost pains to im- 
prove, and with great success, being possessed of an 
agreeable and attractive person, and most insinu- 
ating manners. His deficiency of sound principle 
was hidden from general observation by great 
plausibility. After the return of " the pretty Miss 
Nancy" to Glasgow, Mr. M'Lehose follow^ed up 
the acquaintance thus commenced, by paying her 
the most assiduous attention, and thus succeeded 
in winning her affections. Being young and inex- 
perienced, deprived of the counsels of a mother 
and sister, and attached to one whom she thought 
possessed of every virtue, and who had shown so 
decided a partiality to her in a manner peculiarly 
calculated to please a romantic mind, — she favour- 
ably received his addresses. 

In this she was not encouraged by her friends, 
who thought that her beauty, talents, and con- 
nexions, entitled her to a superior match. How- 
ever, she became Mrs. M'Lehose in July 1776, 
being then only seventeen years of age, and her 
husband five years her senior. Their union, she 
always stated, was the result of disinterested affec- 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 17 

tion on both sides. But this connexion proved 
the bane of her happiness, and the source of all 
her misfortunes. Married at so early an age, be- 
fore the vivacity of youth was passed, and, indeed, 
before it was fully developed, possessed of consid- 
erable personal attractions, a ready flow of wit, 
a keen relish for society, in which her conversa- 
tional powers fitted her to excel, and a strong love 
of admiration ; she appears to have displeased her 
husband, because she could not at once forego 
those enjoyments so natural to her time of life 
and situation. And he, without any cause, seems 
to have conceived the most unworthy jealousy, 
which led him to treat her with a severity most 
injudicious, and, to one of her disposition, produc- 
tive of the worst consequences. 

She soon discovered the mistaken estimate she 
had formed of her husband's character ; and being; 
of a high sanguine spirit, could ill brook the un- 
merited bad treatment she received. To use her 
own words, in a statement which she afterwards 
made for the advice of her friends — " Only a short 
time had elapsed ere I perceived, with inexpressible 
regret, that our dispositions, tempers, and senti- 



18 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

ments, were so totally different, as to banish all 
hopes of happiness. Our disagreements rose to 
such a height, and my husband's treatment was so 
harsh, that it was thought advisable by my friends 
a separation should take place, which accordingly 
followed in December 1780." 

Mrs. M'Lehose had at this period only two 
children living — having lost her first-born. A 
fourth was born a few months after this separa- 
tion. Soon after this event, her husband took 
her infant children away from her, in the hopes 
of thereby w^orking on her maternal feelings, and 
forcing a reunion which she had firmly refused, 
being convinced that they could not live happily 
together. She parted with her children with ex- 
treme reluctance — her father being both able and 
willing to maintain her and them ; while her hus- 
band had neglected his business, and entered into 
every species of dissipation, so that he became 
unable to maintain his children, and they were 
distributed among his relations — the youngest 
infant being, as soon as possible, removed from 
the tender care of his mother, and committed to the 
charge of a hireling nurse. He even prohibited 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M'LEHOSE. 19 

her from seeing the children, to whom, he knew, 
she was devotedly attached. It required the ut- 
most fortitude, on her part, to bear this cruel 
deprivation ; but, by enduring it, she rendered her 
husband's cruel attempt abortive. All the chil- 
dren died young, except the late A. C. M'Le- 
hose, W. S. 

Immediately after the separation, she had re- 
turned to her father's house with her children, 
where she remained till his death, in the year 1782, 
two years afterwards. He judiciously left his pro- 
perty to be invested in an annuity for her behoof, 
entirely independent of her husband, and beyond 
his control; and, feeling it unpleasant to remain 
in the same city with her husband and his rela- 
tions, and yet in a state of alienation, Mrs. M'Le- 
hose, by the advice of her friends, removed to Edin- 
burgh in the same year, 1782. 

Her husband followed her soon after, on his 
way to London, having formed an intention of 
going abroad. He solicited an interview in these 
terms — "Earlv to-morrow mornins: I leave this 
country for ever, and therefore wish much to pass 
one quarter of an hour with you. Upon my word 



20 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

of honour, my dearest Nancy, it is the last night 
you probably will ever have an opportunity of see- 
ing me in this world." This appeal she refused 
for the following reasons : — " I consulted my friends : 
they advised me against seeing him; and as I 
thought it could be productive of no good, I de- 
clined the interview%*' The treatment she received 
from her husband w^hile living wdth him, must have 
been bad indeed, to make one of her forgiving dis- 
position so unyielding ; and he seems to have been 
not altogether insensible to his misconduct; for, 
two years later, and just previous to going abroad, 
he wrote to his wife — " For my own part, I am 
"willing to forget what is past ; neither do I require 
any apology from you : for I am heartily sorry for 
those instances of my behaviour to you which 
caused our separation. Were it possible to recall 
them, they should never be repeated." These feel- 
ings may have been sincere at the moment, but they 
had no depth or endurance. 

Soon after Mr. M'Lehose went to London, in the 
year 1782, he wrote his wdfe a very reproachful letter, 
stating his intention of going abroad, and bidding 
her take her children home to her. In this letter he 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 21 

observed — '^ The sooner you return to Glasgow the 
better, and take under your care and protection 
those endearing pledges of our once-happier days, 
as none of my friends will have any thing to do 
with them." After speaking of his prospects of 
employment, he added — " Yet still, however re- 
mote my residence may be from you and those 
endearing infants, God forbid that I should be so 
destitute of natural affection for them, as to permit 
you or them, in the smallest degree, to be burden- 
some to any of your friends. On the contrary, I 
shall at all times observe the strictest economy, and 
exert myself to the uttermost, so that I may be ena- 
bled to contribute to your ease and happiness." 

It will be seen in the sequel how this fair promise 
was observed. The truth is, that as he could not pre- 
vail on his wife to live with him, even by depriving her 
of her children, to whom she was tenderly attached, 
and his relations would no longer support him in 
idleness, nor his children for his sake, their sympa- 
thy for him being blunted, if not deadened, by his 
misconduct, — he thus contrived to throw the burden 
of them on his young wife, whose patrimonial in- 
come was very limited. Her situation at this trying 
2* 



22 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

period is thus related : — " The income left me by my 
father being barely sufficient to board myself, I was 
now distressed how to support my three infants. 
With my spirits sunk in deep dejection, I went to 
Glasgow to see them. I found arrears due for their 
board. This I paid ; and the goodness of some 
worthy gentlemen in Glasgow procuring me a small 
annuity from the writers, and one from the surgeons, 
I again set out for Edinburgh with them in August 
1782 ; and, by the strictest economy, made my little 
income go as far as possible : the deficiency was 
always supplied by some worthy benevolent friends, 
whose kindness no time can erase from my grate- 
ful heart." 

When Mrs. ]\I'Lehose settled in Edinburgh in 
1782, though comparatively a stranger, her youth, 
beauty, and misfortunes, and, above all, her exem- 
plary conduct, procured for her the friendship, not 
only of her own relations, but of many respect- 
able families, till then unkno\Yn to her, from whom 
she received many substantial proofs ofkindness. 

Thus, though deprived of his assistance, to which 
she had the most sacred claim, she had much rea- 
son to bless God for his goodness in raising up so 



MEMOIR OF MRS. m'lEHOSE. 23 

many friends. Among those friends. Lord Craig,* 
her cousin-german, then an advocate at the Scot- 
tish bar, is particularly deserving of mention. He 
befriended her from her first arrival in Edinburgh, 
and continued, during his life, her greatest bene- 
factor. Mrs. M'Lehose consulted him on all occa- 
sions of difficulty ; and when deprived of the an- 

* Lord Craig was the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Craig of 
Glasgow, and was born in the year 1745. He passed advo- 
cate in 1768; and after tilling the office of Depute-advocate 
and Sheriff-depute of Ayrshire, he was raised to the bench in 
1792, and succeeded Lord Henderland as Lord Commissioner 
of Justiciary in 1795. He died in 1813. 

The Scots Magazine of that year says of him, " as a judge 
he was highly honourable and upright — endowed with perse- 
vering talents and a complete knowledge of his profession ; 
few men despatched more business with greater precision 
than Lord Craig. 

" When at the bar, though considered an able counsel, his 
practice never was extensive — he was rather remarkable as a 
man attached to the Belles Lettres. He wrote more papers 
in the Mirror and Lounger th.a.n any other contributor except 
Henry Mackenzie. 

" In private life he was gentle, affable, and unassuming, 
and in an eminent degree hospitable and benevolent. He 
possessed the warm esteem of a select circle of friends, to 
whom he was extremely attached." 



24 ■ MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

ntiities from Glasgow, soon after her husband set- 
tled in Jamaica, on account of his ability to main- 
tain his children himself, Lord Craig generously 
continued them, and made up the deficiencies of 
her income. At his death he left her an annuity, 
and made her son residuary legatee. Besides 
these substantial acts of kindness, she enjoyed his 
friendship, and was a frequent visitor at his house, 
where the best literary society of Edinburgh used to 
assemble. 

During Mrs. M'Lehose's early residence in Edin- 
burgh, when she had not joined that social circle, of 
which she soon became an ornament, she devoted 
much time and attention to remedying the defects of 
her early education. She improved her taste by the 
study of the best English authors, and became profi- 
cient in English composition. Possessed of a most 
retentive memory, she often quoted aptly from 
those authors, both in conversation and in her 
correspondence, which afterwards became exten- 
sive, and in which she excelled. It is to be re- 
gretted that so little of that correspondence has 
been preserved ; but Mrs. M'Lehose having sur- 
vived nearly all the friends of her early life, ap- 



MEMOIR OF MRS. m'LEHOSE. 25 

plications made in quarters where it was supposed 
her letters might have been preserved, have been 
unsuccessful. 

It was at this period, also, that Mrs. M'Lehose 
began cultivating the Muses. She produced many 
short poetical effusions, a few of which have been 
preserved and are inserted in this volume. Her 
earliest composition was an " Address to a Black- 
bird," which she heard singing on a tree near her 
residence, in the neighbourhood of a spot where 
St. Margaret's Convent has since been placed. The 
ideas, she stated, came into her mind like inspiration. 

In the rearing and education of her children 
she took great delight ; and the society of the 
many friends she acquired yielded her constant 
enjoyment for a long series of years, until the 
progress of time thinned their ranks, and increas- 
ing years and infirmities made her, in some de- 
gree, willing to relinquish social intercourse, of 
which she was so fond, for the retirement befit- 
ting old age. Among the literary men who used 
to visit her, Thomas Campbell, who was then 
prosecuting his studies at the University ; the ami- 
able Graham, the author of the " Sabbath ;" .Tames 



26 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

Gray, author of " Cuna of Cheyd " and the " Sab- 
bath among the Mountains," and Robert Ains- 
lie, the friend of Burns, author of various religious 
works addressed to the young, and of a series of po- 
litical letters, — may be enumerated. This gentle- 
man proved throughout life a warm and steady 
friend. He was an original visitor at Mrs. M'Lehose's 
New-Year parties, which were kept up for about 
forty years, and are still remembered by several of 
the younger guests for their great conviviality, to 
which the liveliness and vivacity of the hostess 
greatly contributed. 

Towards the end of the year 1787, Robert 
Burns was introduced to Mrs. M'Lehose, in the 
house of a mutual friend, Miss Nimmo. They 
spent the evening together; and we have the 
sentiments recorded by both parties of the im- 
pressions reciprocally produced. The poet de- 
clared, in one of his letters to her, " Of all God's 
creatures I ever could approach in the beaten way 
of friendship, you struck me with the deepest, 
the strongest, the most permanent impression." 
While she wrote : — " Miss Nimmo can tell you 
how earnestly I had long pressed her to make us 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 27 

acquainted. I had a presentiment that we would 
derive pleasure from the society of each other." 
The poet was at this time preparing to depart 
from Edinburgh ; and, under these circumstances, 
could only regret that he had not possessed the 
opportunity of cultivating the lady's acquaint- 
ance earlier ; but a severe accident, which happen- 
ed a day or two later, when he was engaged to 
spend the evening with her, delayed his departure 
for some time, and led to a correspondence, in 
which Mrs. M'Lehose fancifully adopted the name 
of " Clarinda," and Burns followed up the idea 
by signing " Sylvander." As soon as he recovered 
from his accident, the poet visited the lady, and 
they enjoyed much of each other's society for 
several months, till he left Edinburgh. They 
met only once afterwards, in the year 1791, — but 
occasionally corresponded till within a short period 
of his death. 

When Mr. M'Lehose went to London in 1782, 
he found too many opportunities for indulging in 
dissipation and extravagance to go abroad so long 
as he was able to procure money from his family 
in Scotland, — assistance which they could ill af- 



28 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

ford, and were obliged, finally, to refuse, their 
patience and generosity being exhausted. After 
two years and a half thus spent in idleness, Mr. 
M'Lehose was thrown into prison for debt; and 
his relatives, being once more appealed to, con- 
sented to advance the funds necessary for his re- 
lease and outfit, on condition that he immediately 
went abroad. With this he complied, and sailed 
for Jamaica, in November 1784. Before leaving 
London, and afterwards from Jamaica, where he 
became very prosperous, he wrote his mother and 
family most grateful letters for their kindness, 
but never repaid the debt, though appealed to 
when his mother's income became inadequate to 
her support. 

Mr. M'Lehose did not favour his wife even 
with grateful letters ; though she wrote him 
repeatedly respecting her circumstances and 
the health of their children. The following ap- 
peal to him, from Lord Craig, was equally fruit- 
less : — " I write you this letter to represent to 
you the situation of your family here. Your 
wife's father left some property in Glasgow, the 
interest of which your wife draws for the support 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 29 

of herself and children; but this not being suffi- 
cient, by the solicitation of some of your friends 
£8 a-year was obtained from the surgeons, and 
..£10 a-year from the ^vriters in Glasgow. Even 
this, however, did not do, owing to the great 
rise in the expense of housekeeping, and the ne- 
cessary outlay for your children, and their educa- 
tion ; so that I advanced money to Mrs. ]\L, even 
while she got the above sums. Accounts, I am 
informed, have lately arrived from Jamaica which 
I am very glad of, representing you to be in a 
very good situation, and as having got into very 
profitable business. The surgeons and writers 
have withdrawn their allowance; and I have been 
told their principal reason for doing so, is the 
accounts they have heard of the goodness of your 
situation. No remittances, however, have, as yet, 
come from you ; and in this last year, owing to 
the withdrawal of the writers and surgeons, I 
have paid Mrs. M'Lehose upwards of jGSO above 
what I have received. No person, except my 
brother, is wilhng to contribute any thing ; and all 
your own relations have positively refused, from 
the beginning, to contribute a single farthing. In 



30 MEMOIR OF MRS. M'lEHOSE. 

this situation I am resolved to advance no more 
money out of my own funds on the account of 
your family. What I have already given, I have 
never laid my account in being reimbursed, and 
it shall never more be thought of; but for the 
future, every consideration demands that you 
should yourself contribute for the support of your 
own children. 

*' I expect, therefore, that you will, by the first 
Qpportunity, write to some of your correspondents 
in this country, giving what directions you think 
proper about your children, and making some 
proper remittance on their account ; as, I repeat it 
again, I am determined not to continue to pay 
money on their account." 

In Mrs. M*Lehose's narrative she states :— " About 
the year 1787, my youngest boy William fell into ill 
health. This increased my expense ; and, at this 
period, the annuities from Glasgow were withheld 
from me ; the reason assigned being, that Mr. IM'Le- 
hose was doing well, and in a way to si;pport his 
children himself. I wrote once more to him, giving 
him an account of his children, particularly of 
William's helpless situation, and also my reduced 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 31 

circumstances, warmly expostulating with him on 
the duty and necessity of remitting for their sup- 
port and education. I anxiously waited for an 
answer, but received none. In August 1790, my 
delicate child was happily dehvered from his suf- 
ferings. I wrote again immediately of his death. 
Still I received no answer till the following Au- 
gust, when I had a letter, and, soon after, an- 
other, inviting me to come out to Jamaica, and 
enclosing a bill for «£50, which was meant, I sup- 
pose, to equip me, and containing the most flat- 
tering directions to give his only surviving son 
the best education Edinburgh would afford." — 
"With regard to my dear son," Mr. M'Lehose 
writes, " it is my wish that he should be placed in 
the first boarding school for young gentlemen, 
either in Edinburgh or its environs: whatever 
expense may attend it, shall be regularly and 
punctually paid. It is my wish that he should 
continue at the Latin until he is perfect master 
of that language : and, when that is accomplished, 
I wish him to be instructed in the French, which 
is now become so generally useful all over the 
globe, and, in particular, here, where I intend to 



32 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

fix him in business. It will be proper, also, that 
he be immediately put under a dancing-mastery 
and, what is still more requisite, that he should 
learn to fence. No expense can be incurred 
that will not be discharged with infinite pleasure 
and satisfaction, provided he is to benefit by it, as 
I could wish. If you have no inclination to come 
out to this country, I then have to request you to 
embrace the first opportunity to inform me of 
such determination, as in that case I will immedi- 
ately order my son up to London, and put him 
under the care of one of the first West India 
houses in the city, to receive the remainder of his 
education, either at Westminster or at Eton, 
whichever they think most advisable." 

Mrs. M'Lehose was much at a loss how to act. At 
first she felt strongly inclined to remain in this 
country, but finally resolved to proceed to Ja- 
maica. "I consulted my friends: they declined 
giving any advice, and referred me to my own 
mind. After much agitation, and deep and anx- 
ious reflection for my only child's sake, for whom 
he promised such liberal things, and encouraged 
by flattering accounts of his character and con- 



MEMOIR OP MRS. M^LEHOSE. 33 

duct in Jamaica, I resolved to undertake the ar- 
duous voyage." 

The motives which influenced her will best be 
seen from the letter which she wrote to her friend 
Lord Craig upon the subject. " When I wrote you 
last, the bidding adieu to my dear boy was my only 
source of anxiety. I had then no idea whatever of 
going ^out to Mr. M'Lehose. Next day I learned 
from Mrs. Adair that Captain Liddel told her my 
husband had the strongest resolution of using me 
kindly, in case I accepted of his invitation ; and that 
pride alone hindered his acknowledging his faults a 
second time, still hurt at my not answering his over- 
tures of reconciliation from London. But that, in 
case I did not choose to come over, I might rest as- 
sured I never would hear from him while he existed. 
Captain Liddel added his opinion, that I ought to 
go, in the strongest terms. Mrs. Adair joins him ; 
and, above all, my poor boy adds his entreaties 
most earnestly. I thought it prudent to inform him, 
for the first time, of the disagreement between his 
parents, and the unhappy jealousy in his father's 
temper. Still he argues that his father may be 
incensed at my refusal. If I go I have a terror of 



34 MEMOIR OF MRS. M'lEHOSE. 

the sea, and no less of the climate ; above all, the 
horror of again involving myself in misery in the 
midst of strangers, and almost without remedy. If 
I refuse, I must bid my only child (in whom all ray 
affections and hopes are entirely centered) adieu for 
ever : struf^o-le with a straitened income and the 
world's censure solitary and unprotected. The 
bright side of these alternatives is, that if I go, my 
husband's jealousy of temper may be abated, from a 
better knowledge of the world ; and time and mis- 
fortunes, by making alterations both on person and 
vivacity, will render me less likely to incur his sus- 
picions ; and that ill humour, which partly arose 
from straitened fortune, will be removed by afflu- 
ence. I will enjoy my son's society, and have him 
for a friend ; and who knows what effect so fine a 
boy may have on a father long absent from his 
sight. If I refuse, and stay here, I shall continue 
to enjoy a circle of kind, respectable friends. — 
Though my income be small, I can never be in 
want; and I shall maintain that liberty which, after 
nine years' enjoyment, I shall find it hard to forego, 
even to the degree to which I am sensible every 
married woman must submit." 



35 

A few days later, she wrote again to the same 
gentleman. " On Friday last I went down to Leith, 
and had a conversation on board the Roselle wath 
,Captain Liddel. He told me that Mr. M'Lehose 
had talked of me, and of my coming over, with 
great tenderness ; and said, it would be my fault if 
w^e did not enjoy great happiness ; and concluded 
wdth assuring me, if I were his own child he would 
advise me to go out. This conversation has tended 
greatly to decide my accepting my husband's invi- 
tation. I have done what you desired me, — weigh- 
ed coolly (as coolly as a subject so interesting would 
permit) all I have to suffer or expect in either situa- 
tion ; and the result is my going to Jamaica. This 
appears to me the preferable choice : it is surely the 
path of duty ; and as such, 1 may look for the bless- 
ing of God to attend my endeavours for happiness 
with him w^ho was the husband of my choice, and 
the father of my children. On Saturday I was 
agreeably surprised by a call from Mr. Kemp. He 
had received my letter that morning at Glasgow, 
and had ahghted for a few minutes, on his way to 
Easter Duddingston, where his family are for summer 
quarters. He was much affected with my perplexing 



36 

situation. Like you, he knew not how to decide, and 
left me, promising to call early this day, which he 
has done. I told him of the meeting with Mr. Lid- 
del, and enumerated all the arguments which I had 
thought of on both sides of the question. What Mr. 
Liddel (who is a man of known worth) said to me 
weighed much with him : and he, too, is now of 
opinion my going to Jamaica is advisable. He gave 
me much good advice as to my conduct towards Mr. 
M'Lehose, and promised to write him himself. Your 
letter luckily arrived while he was with me. The 
assurance of my little income being secured me, not 
a little adds both to his opinion of the propriety of 
my going, and to my ease and comfort, in case (after 
doing all I can) it should prove impossible to enjoy 
that peace which I so earnestly pant after ; and 
I would fain hope for a tender reception. After 
ten years' separation, and the sacrifice I make of 
bidding adieu (probably for ever) to my friends and 
ray country — indeed, I am much depressed in mind — 
should I escape the sea, the climate may prove 
fatal to me; but should it happen so, I have the 
satisfaction to think I shall die in attempting to at- 
tain happiness in that path of duty which Provi- 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M'LEHOSE. 37 

dence and a succession of events seem to point out 
for the best. You, my dear kind benefactor, have 
had much trouble with me first and last; and 
though others appear ungrateful, neither time nor 
absence can ever erase from my heart the remem- 
brance of your past kindness. My prayers shall 
ascend for the reward of heaven upon your head ! 
To-morrow I am to write to my husband. Mr. 
Kemp is to see it on Wednesday. If any person 
occurs to you as proper to place Andrew with in 
Edinburgh, let me know — the sooner the better: 
the hopes of his rejoining me will help to console 
my mind in the midst of strangers. I am sorry you 
are to be so long of coming to town. Meantime 1 
shall be glad to hear from you : for I am, my dear 
sir, in every possible situation, your affectionate and 
obliged friend, A. M." 

"laccordingly wrote my husband in October, 
1791, acquainting him with my resolution of forget- 
ting past differences, and throwing myself on his 
protection." 

As the Roselle did not leave for Jamaica till 

spring, she again wrote him in December. After 

giving the details of the arrangements she had made 
3 



38 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

for their son's education, in compliance with his in- 
structions, she thus^proceeds: — "I had occasion to 
be in Glasgow lately for two days only. I called 
for your mother. I felt much for her — bereaved of 
so many children. The peculiar circumstances, 
which attended poor Annie's death, affected me ex- 
cessively. They toJd me you had not written these 
three years past ; but I assured them (and I hope it 
is the case) that your letters must have miscarried, 
as I could not believe you capable of such unkind 
neglect. I am certain, inclination, no less than 
duty, must ever prompt you to pay attention to your 
mother. She has met with many and sore afflic- 
tions j and I feel for her the most sincere sympathy." 
In the same letter she adds, " I have met with much 
kindness since I came to Edinburgh, from a set of 
most agreeable and respectable friends. No ideas 
of wealth or splendour could compensate for the pain 
I shall feel in bidding them adieu. Nothing could 
support me but the fond reliance I have of gaining 
your affection and confidence. To possess these is 
the dearest wish of my heart ; and I trust the Al- 
mighty will grant this my ardent desire. I would 
fain hope to hear from you ere we sail ; a kind let- 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 39 

ter from you would prove a balm to my soul during 
the anxieties of a tedious voyage." 

" Mrs. M'Lehose sailed from Leith in February, 
1792, and arrived at Kingston in April following. 
The day before her departure she received a letter 
from her fickle husband, dissuading her from going 
out, on the pretence that the yellow-fever prevailed 
in the island, and that a revolt had taken place 
among the negroes ; both of which statements were 
false. But, having taken leave of her friends, en- 
gaged her passage, and made the preparations 
which the expectation of an absence, prolonged 
perhaps for years, required, she resolved (un- 
wisely, as the event proved) to proceed. It is a 
curious coincidence that the vessel she sailed in was 
the " Roselle," the same in which Burns intended 
to have sailed for the same destination a few years 
earlier. 

Mrs. M'Lehose suffered much from the voyage, 
especially in the warmer latitudes; and when 
she reached Kingston, her husband did not go down 
to the ship for a length of time. All the other 
lady passengers had been speedily joined by their 
friends. When he came, he was very cold, and 



40 MEMOIR OF MRS. m'lEHOSE. 

seemed far from being glad to see his wife ; and 
even in this interview, before they left the ship, he 
used some harsh expressions towards her in presence 
of the Captain and others, which wounded her feel- 
ings much. 

" As my constitution never agreed with heat, 
I felt its bad effects as soon as we had crossed the 
Line ; but the very cold reception I received from 
Mr. M'Lehose, on landing, gave me a shock, which, 
joined to the climate, deranged my mind to such 
a degree as made me not answerable for what I 
either said or did. My husband's after kindness 
could not remove the complication of nervous dis- 
orders which seized me. They increased to such 
a height that Dr. Fife, the professional gentleman 
who attended me, and whose soothing manner I 
can never forget, was of opinion my going home 
was absolutely necessary — otherwise my reason, 
if not my life, would fall a sacrifice. Accordingly, 
in June, I took leave of Mr. M'Lehose, and re- 
turned home in the ship I had gone out in. Our 
parting was most affectionate. On my part, it was 
with sincere regret that my health obliged me to 
leave him. Upon his, it was, to all appearance. 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M*LEHOSE. 41 

equally so. However, We parted with mutual pro- 
mises of constancy, and of keeping up a regular cor- 
respondence. After getting into cool air, I grad- 
ually recovered my health." 

There were other reasons for leaving Jamaica be- 
sides those which she mentioned in the statement 
just quoted. Mr. M'Lehose, like most West Indian 
planters, had a family by a coloured mistress. This 
could not be otherwise than a source of mortifica- 
tion and annoyance. The ebullition of temper, 
which he had exhibited towards her on their first 
meeting, was a prelude to more violent outbreaks, 
which, though not always directed to her personally, 
paralyzed her with fear. His slaves were generally 
the objects of these fits of wrath ; and seeing that 
his wife pitied their abject condition, he took plea- 
sure in threatening and abusing them in her pre- 
sence. 

Circumstances were thus most unfavourable to 
Mrs. M'Lehose's stay in Jamaica; but, had they 
been propitious, she was ill calculated to endure a 
permanent change of habits. That she w^as un- 
doubtedly very unhappy in the West Indies, may be 



42 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LENOSE. 

gathered from the following extract from her 
Journal, many years afterwards : — " Recollect that 
I arrived in Jamaica this day twenty-two years. 
What I suffered during the three months I remained 
there ! Lord make me grateful for thy goodness in 
bringing me back to my native country !" 

Mrs. M'Lehose arrived in Edinburgh in August, 
1792, and soon after resumed housekeeping, and 
took home her son, who had been placed at Dr. 
Chapman's excellent boarding-school. The first 
year had now expired, without any part of the ex- 
pense being defrayed by his father; and the debt 
was ultimately cancelled by the liberality of Lord 
Craig. As Mr. M'Lehose continued thus utterly to 
neglect his wife and son, she was prevailed on by 
her friends to institute proceedings against him be- 
fore the Court of Sessions, in order to enforce these 
obligations. In March, 1797, accordingly, she 
obtained a judgment of the Court, ordaining him to 
pay her a yearly aliment of <£ 100 sterling. From 
that judgment the following is an extract: — "In 
the close of the year 1784, Mr. M'Lehose settled as 
an attorney-at-law, in Kingston, Jamaica ; and busi- 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 43 

ness increased so rapidly, that he was soon in pos- 
session of, and still enjoys a revenue of jElOOO 
a-year from his'profession." 

This decree, however, owing to Mr. M'Lehose 
being resident in Jamaica, did not add to Mrs. 
M'Lehose's income; although it was the means 
ultimately of enabling her to recover, in this country, 
some funds belonging to her husband. 

Thus abandoned by her husband, Mrs. M'Lehose 
and her only son, the late Mr. Andrew M'Lehose, 
W. S., continued to live together. Soon after her 
return from Jamaica, Mr. Robert Ainslie, the friend 
of Burns, kindly took her son as apprentice. He 
continued to live with his mother, until the year 
1809, when he married. They lived most happily 
together; and probably there have been few in- 
stances of more devoted mutual attachment between 
parent and child. 

In March, 1812, Mr. M^Lehose died at Kingston ; 
and, though he had been in receipt of a large in- 
come for many years, as Chief Clerk of the Court of 
Common Pleas in Jamaica, no funds were ever re- 
ceived from that island by his family. A report 
reached this country, as being a matter of notoriety 



44 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

in Kingston, that some of his particular friends had, 
on the approach of death, sent all his domestics out 
of the house ; and, as soon as the breath quitted his 
body, carried off whatever cash and documents there 
were. If so, the friends proved befitting the man. 
Notice, however, was given to Mrs. M'Lehose that 
a balance of several hundred pounds, belonging to 
her husband, was in the hands of Messrs. Coutts in 
London, which she soon afterwards obtained. 

It was then discovered that he had had an account 
current at this bank for many years, while he had 
suffered his family to have their income eked out by 
the generosity of friends : ^50 advanced her, as 
already mentioned, before she sailed for Jamaica, 
and a present of £2\ on leaving that island, were 
all which this wealthy husband bestowed on his 
family in the long period of thirty-two years. Yet, 
after her departure from Jamaica, he was in the 
habit of speaking of his family with great affection, 
and boasted of the valuable presents which he had 
made his wife and son. It is believed that few 
men have passed through life outwardly respected 
by society, who have more basely neglected all 
the ties of affection and duty. He was a man of 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 45 

good talents and very pleasing address; much given 
to an ostentatious kind of hospitality. His temper was 
occasionally most violent and ungovernable ; often 
soft and agreeable. His written correspondence 
with his wife partakes of the same character : the 
same letter containing alternate passages of the 
most endearing expressions and most insulting 
language. 

Though Mrs. M'Lehose survived her husband 
the long period of twenty-nine years, there are few 
or no incidents of any general interest in her 
after-life. Her best friend and benefactor, Lord 
Craig, died in 1813 ; and it was her fate not only 
to survive most of the friends of her middle life, 
but to see all her son's family, except one grand- 
son, (the present editor,) pass away before her to 
the grave. Her son himself died suddenly in April, 
1839, having been predeceased by his wife and 
two children. After this event, Mrs. M'Lehose's 
memory, which had begun to decline several years 
before, failed very much. Her other mental facul- 
ties were not so much affected, and her health 
and strength cbntinued good, — so much so, that 
she w^as able to enjoy, till shortly before her 
3* 



46 MEMOIR OF MRS. M'LEHOSE. 

death, her favourite walk round the Calton Hill. 
A lady (widow of the late Commissary-general 
Moodie, of Van Diemen's Land) who, with her 
sister, made the acquaintance of Mrs. M'Lehose 
at a very late period of her life, and both of whom 
paid her much kind attention, has favoured the 
editor with some observations from her Journal, 
from which the following extracts are made : — 

" Edinburgh, 10th March, 1841.— I have been 
interested by nothing more in this Queen of Cities, 
with its * palaces and towers/ than by poor 
Burns's Monument. It is pleasant, in the land of 
his nativity, to find the bard of nature, and of all 
time, in full possession of that ' posthumous 
fame' which it was his delight to contemplate 
in life, and to which he was confident his genius 
would entitle him. An accidental circumstance, 
improved by my curiosity, (which I beg leave to 
dignify by denominating literary,) has brought me 
acquainted with one who was the friend and cor- 
respondent of the poet. This is the celebrated 
' Clarinda,' who still lives, at the advanced age 
of eighty-two, near the Calton Hill. I have had 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 47 

many opportunities of conversing with her. Her 
memory is greatly impaired ; and being also a 
little deaf, and seldom now quitting her house, 
common occurrences have ceased to interest her ; 
even the affairs of the Kirk, which at present 
agitate and divide all Scotland, from John o'Groat's 
to the Border, make no impression on her mind. 
But it is satisfactory to observe how much remains 
in that mind to cheer the hours of solitude, and 
to give consolation to the close of a life prolonged 
beyond the common lot. 

" 30th March, 1841. — Owing to sickness in 
my family I did not see Mrs. M'Lehose for a short 
time. When I called, I found this interesting 
old lady much altered in appearance, though not 
in spirits. She lives in great simplicity, and is 
very sensible of the great blessing of health. 

" June, 1841. — I still see her with interest ; 
for, although her memory is much weakened by 
time, and the severe shock she suffered about two 
years ago in the sudden death of her son, yet her 
state is far from that of second childhood. She 
is perfectly conscious that her intellectual powers 
are much abridged. She remarked upon the loss 



48 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

of her memory, — ' It was the strongest organ I 
possessed, — therefore, having been so much exer- 
cised, it is no wonder it has taken leave the first.' 

" Although her memory is gone as to daily 
occurrences, yet her recollection is extraordinary 
as to past events, particularly in reciting anec- 
dotes in verse in order to illustrate the conversa- 
tion, — the subject of which she never misappre- 
hends, whether lively or serious. Indeed, her 
mind is still the receptacle of fine thoughts, — and 
in conversation with ojie person, she is always 
ready, and never misapplies a quotation when the 
subject requires one. When there are many in 
the room, she becomes confused, and seems to take 
no part in the conversation, by reason, I think, 
of her deafness, more than any defect of under- 
standing. Her piety is beautifully illustrated in 
her allusions to the Scriptures ; and her memory 
is tenacious in reciting the Paraphrases. Speak- 
ing of old age, she observed 'on the loss each 
year sustains,' but she immediately added, as if 
recollecting that injustice might thereby be im- 
puted to the Almighty, — 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 49 

He gives, and when He takes away 
He takes but what He gave. 

She also quoted the tenth verse of the ninetieth 
Psalm, with great accuracy and emphasis. Even 
her conversation on religious subjects has been so 
entirely from the heart, that we have always en- 
joyed the subjects that led that way. She often 
expresses her thankfulness for the faithful attend- 
ance of her excellent servant, who is devoted to 
' the mistress,' to whom she is now indebted for 
all her earthly comfort, and who is consequently 
much beloved and trusted by her." 

" 22d October, 1841.— Our old friend, Mrs. 
M'Lehose, died this morning. She is gone, and 
I fully believe to her rest : for she was humble, 
and relied for acceptance upon the atonement. It 
has been a source of satisfaction to us to witness 
the composure of the last days of ' Clarinda.' To 
some who saw this old lady latterly, the apathy of 
age, and the loss of memory, gave the idea of 
greater feebleness of mind than was really the 
case. There were intervals in which she was 
still capable of a degree of mental exercise ; and 
corresponding sentiments often served to elicit 



50 MEMOIR OF MRS. m'lEHOSE. 

something of that mental activity for which she 
had been remarkable. We have frequently found 
her very collected and clear upon subjects which 
interested her. I had the blessing of prayer with 
her frequently ; and on the day of her death I 
prayed by her bedside, but she could not join : 
she only pressed my hand, and said, ' I am much 
obliged to you.' She went off peacefully. Amongst 
her last words were, * I go to Jesus.' When her 
faithful servant said to her, * Do you fear death ? ' 
she answered, ' Not so much now.' After a short 
time she felt very cold, and, pressing her servant's 
hands, exclaimed, * Margaret I Margaret ! ' and 
expired. 

'' 1 shall ever feel that my sister and myself have 
been highly favoured, in being considered by this 
old lady as a source of comfort in her last 
days, as her note to me, written ten days before 
her death, testifies. ' My dear Mrs. Moodie, 
I am wearying to see you. Do give me a call. 
I am very poorly. I shall never forget your great 
kindness to me, and your being a stranger. I 
can give you no return, but my earnest wish that 
God may bless you and your little ones. May 



MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 51 

they be spared to you for a blessing, and at last 
may they be heirs of glory, is the wish and prayers 
of your earnest friend, A. M. Oct. 12, 1841.' " 
This was written in a firm, distinct hand. 

Of Mrs. M'Lehose's appearance in early life, it 
has already been recorded, that she was considered 
one of the beauties of Glasgow. The editor's per- 
sonal recollection does not extend beyond her 
middle life. She was short in stature ; her hands 
and feet small and delicate ; her skin fair, with a 
ruddy colour in her cheeks, which she retained to 
the end of her life ; her eyes were lively, and 
evinced great vivacity ; her teeth well formed, 
and beautifully white ; her voice was soft and 
pleasing. Mrs. M'Lehose's perceptive talents were 
not so good as her powers of reflection. Her 
judgment was often misled by her imagination, or 
biassed by the keenness of her feelings ; but she 
read much ; and having an excellent memory, and 
exercising sound reflection, she made the know- 
ledge thus acquired her own. Her observation on 
the world around her was constant and acute, and 
she formed a true appreciation of her own posi- 
tion. But her sensitiveness was too great ; her 



52 MEMOIR OF MRS. M^LEHOSE. 

natural vivacity was strong, and when she gave 
full play to it in society, next clay's reflection 
made her construe slight deviations, on her own 
part especially, and sometimes in others, into 
grave offences, for which she felt undue regret. 
She was very fond of society, and took a lead in 
it, from her vivacity and ready wit ; but when 
there were many strangers, she kept in the back 
ground. It seemed to require the fostering en- 
couragement of those who had already shown an 
appreciation of her conversational powers to ex- 
cite her to the exercise of them. 

For thirty or forty years, it is believed she was 
in company five days out of seven ; and when later 
years thinned the ranks of her friends, and dimin- 
ished the number of her invitations, it was with 
great difficulty she became reconciled to a more 
retired mode of life. As her feelings were naturally 
strong, so were her attachments. She always con- 
sidered ingratitude as one of the basest of sins. She 
would have been a devoted wife, had it not been her 
misfortune to be united to a man utterly incapable 
of appreciating her, or of affording her happiness. 

As a mother she was fond and indulgent; and 



MEMOIR OF MRS. m'LEHOSE. 53 

the only son who was spared to her, was the object 
of her warmest affections, and most tender solici- 
tude. Nor did her attachment to her friends cease 
with their lives. She cherished their memory when 
gone, and, in several instances, pays a tribute to 
their virtues, or the recollection of former happy 
meetings, in her Journal, many years afterwards. 
As an example, her notices of Burns may be 
quoted : 

" 2bth Jan., 1815. — Burns's birth-day. — A great 
dinner at Oman's. Should like to be there, an in- 
visible spectator of all said of that great genius." 

" 6th Dec, 1831. — This day I never can forget. 
Parted with Burns in the year 1791, never more 
to meet in this world. Oh, may we meet in 
Heaven !" • 

Indeed, this habit Mrs. M'Lehose indulged in to 
excess. It so happened that she had lost most of 
her relations in the month of March, which she 
therefore considered an unlucky month; and an- 
nually recorded the deaths, with such observations 
as show that she did not permit the soothing in- 
fluence of time to efface the bitterness of past and 
unavailing sorrows. 



imODUCTIOI TO THE CORRESPOIDEKCE. 



^ 



ori ^■' ■ 



SYLVANDER AND CLARINDA. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE 



SYLVANDER AND CLARINDA 



Much misapprehension and prejudice seem to 
have prevailed, respecting the nature of the ac- 
quaintance of Burns with Mrs. M^Lehose. A 
portion of his letters having been surreptitiously 
printed many years ago, — in the absence of the 
lady's letters, which are now first published, — the 
worst construction was put on those passages which 
the Poet had written in moments of excitement or 
unguardedness. Yet the raptures, flights, and senti- 
ments of two such minds, cannot be understood or 
appreciated, without making allowances for their 
deviations from the ordinary track of common-place 
intercourse. A glance at the various circumstances 
in the previous life of each, will show much that 
was calculated to attract the strongest mutual sym- 
pathies in beings of so susceptible a nature. 



58 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

To understand the line of propriety chalked out 
by the parties themselves ; the feelings called forth 
by their occasional deviations from this self-pre- 
scribed boundary, and the caution observed by them 
— especially by the lady — as to their friends' and 
neighbours' opinions and surmises respecting their 
intercourse ; it is necessary to consider the relative 
situation of Burns and Clarinda at the period of 
their acquaintance, as well as the habits and man- 
ners of the time and place. 

It was towards the close of the year 1787, when 
Burns had made up his mind immediately to leave 
Edinburgh, that he spent the evening with Mrs. 
M'Lehose in the house of a mutual friend, in Alison 
Square, Potterrow. Powerfully impressed with the 
sprightly and intelligent character of the lady, he 
could, in these circumstances, only regret that he 
had not made her acquaintance at an earlier period; 
but an accident prevented his departure at the time 
he had appointed, which was afterwards still further 
delayed from other causes. During the tedious con- 
finement occasioned by this accident, he cultivated 
the lady's acquaintance by correspondence ; and, as 
soon as he was able to go out, visited her. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 59 

/ t ^h]F p^rior'j the first edition of his poems pub- 
lished in Edinburgh, had been eminently successful, 
— producing considerable fame, and an amount of 
funds which, compared with his previous circum- 
stances, must have seemed riches. He had been 
also introduced to circles of talent and acquire- 
ments, rank and fashion, which, in his original 
situation, he never could have hoped' to see. But 
such unequal intercourse necessarily exposes the 
inferior to occasional caprice. Burns had some 
experience of this ; and, as he always had a par- 
ticular jealousy of people richer or higher than 
himself, he must have felt deeply mortified. 

Again, with his ardent temperament, he could not 
but fall in love wdth some of the elegant young 
ladies he met with in these circles ; and comparing 
their cultivated charms with those of his former 
loves, he seems to have felt a desire to possess one 
for a wife ; but his inferior rank, unsettled circum- 
stances, and, above all, his equivocal " certificate as 
a bachelor," presented an insurmountable barrier. 
It is evident, that at this time he considered himself 
free of all legal and moral obligation to Jean Ar- 
mour ; regarding the burning of her marriage hnes, 



60 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

and her acquiescence in their destruction, as releas- 
ing him from the responsibiUty of wedlock, though 
he felt " a miserable blank in his heart with the 
want of her." 

Thus circumstanced, Burns made the acquaint- 
ance of Mrs. M'Lehose ; and is it to be wondered 
at that he found great delight in the society of a 
lady of her talents and great vivacity, — well-read 
and fond of poetry, romantic, and a " bit of an 
enthusiast," warm in her feelings and attachments, 
who immediately and keenly sympathized with 
him 1 or, is it a matter of surprise, that he felt, and 
sometimes expressed hopes that were wild and 
visionary ? 

Mrs. M'Lehose was at this period a young mar- 
ried woman, whose husband was abroad; but, ow- 
ins: to his unmerited bad treatment of her, a 
separation had taken place several years before. 
She was gifted with ardent affections, and feelings 
capable of the most devoted attachment, — in the 
prime of life, — not possessed of the " dear cha- 
rities of brother, sister, parent:" for "I have 
none of these," she writes, " and belong to no- 
body." How deeply she felt the loneliness of her 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 61 

situation appears from what she writes in another 
letter : — " At this season, [New Year,] when 
others are joyous, I am the reverse. I have no 
near relations ; and while others are with their 
friends, I sit alone, musing upon several of mine, 
with whom I used to be, now gone to the land of 
forgetfulness." 

Thus, as it were desolate, and feeling that " her 
heart — her fondest wishes — could not be placed on 
him who ought to have had them, but whose 
conduct had justly forfeited them," — it was very 
natural, though not very prudent, that she had 
long " sought for a male friend .... who could 
love me with tenderness— yet unmixed with self- 
ishness ; who could be my friend, companion, 
protector ! and who w^ould die sooner than injure 
me." 

This friend she now found. " I sought, but I 
sought in vain. Heaven has, I hope, sent me this 
blessing in my Sylvander." 

Though the friends of Mrs. M'Lehose's husband 
condemned his conduct, and had suffered severely 
from it themselves, yet they, in some degree, es- 
poused his cause; and, no doubt were ready to 

4 



62 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

listen to any whisper of slander against her. Her 
temperament, naturally too sensitive, led her to 
be extremely timid and cautious. Moreover, she 
had a young family, who needed all her care; 
and her circumstances being narrow, and eked out 
by the bounty of others, it behoved her to be 
guarded, lest imprudence might stop that bounty, 
and throw her into increased difficulties. 

Mrs. M'Lehose was, in several respects, a ready 
mark for the ill-natured observations of the en- 
vious and censorious, — being a wit and a beauty, 
and having " an inveterate turn for social plea- 
sure." When she indulged this turn, she ad- 
mits that her vivacity often carried her too far. 
"If you saw me in a merry party, you would 
suppose me only an enthusiast in /tin ; but I now 
avoid such parties. My spirits are sunk for days 
after ; and, what is worse, there are sometimes 
dull or malicious souls who censure me loudly for 
what their sluggish natures cannot comprehend. 
Were I possessed of an independent fortune, I 
would scorn their pitiful remarks; but everything 
in my situation renders prudence necessary." 

When Burns visited Mrs. M^Lehose, she lived in 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 63 

a court at the back of General's Entry, Potterrow, 
a narrow street into which this entry forms a 
passage. A small circular stair leads to the different 
floors, on the first of which she lived. The rooms 
are small and low-roofed, with windows of less 
size than many modern panes of glass- 

In the year 1787, the building of the New Town 
of Edinburgh was not far advanced, and the good 
people were not accustomed to wide airy streets; 
nor did they generally occupy spacious rooms, with 
abundance of the light of heaven. They were con- 
tent to live in alleys and courts, or, at best, in 
narrow streets; and were satisfied with small 
rooms, with diminutive window^s, which did not 
afford a sufficiency of daylight. When people 
lived in such close neighbourhood, they had much 
better opportunities than are afforded in the present 
day of watching the movements of their neighbours ; 
opportunities which, it has been wickedly asserted, 
they were not slow to improve. To this they may 
have been so far incited by the deficiency of day- 
light ; the very obscurity, perhaps, lending a charm 
to prying curiosity. 

In Clarinda's letter to Sylvander, of the 16th 



64 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

January, there is an amusing instance of her anxiety 
to avoid this disagreeable sort of observation : — 
" Either to-morrow or Friday, I shall be happy to 
see you. * * * I hope you'll come a-foot, even 
though you take a chair home. A chair is so un- 
common a thing in our neighbourhood, it is apt to 
raise speculation : but they are all asleep by ten." 
It is not to be doubted that a sedan chair would 
have caused much interesting speculation in an 
" entry ;" and it was a lucky circumstance that the 
neighbours, some of whom, it is to be feared, were 
of the "coarser stuff of human nature," were such 
early-to-bed people. 

When Mrs. M'Lehose sought for a friend, who 
could love her with tenderness unmixed with selfish- 
ness, and found this friend in Sylvander, she under- 
rated the influence of love and the power of the 
charmer. It is easy to resist the beginning of 
passion ; easy to turn aside the stream when it is 
small; but difficult to direct or stem the current 
when the stream has become a torrent. Thus 
Clarinda became so rapidly and so strongly attached 
to Sylvander, that she herself trembled for the con- 
sequences. Pleased with the genius of this extraor- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 65 

dinary man, who had " her best wishes before they 
met," she did not sufficiently estimate the danger of 
so tender an intercourse. 

But though there w^ere many rocks on which 
their love was threatened with shipwreck, some- 
times from the boldness of the pilot, sometimes 
from her own uncalled-for alarm, it is apparent 
tVat what she required in such a friend (and 
her requirements who shall condemn ?) was satisfac- 
torily fulfilled. "In you, and you alone, I have 
ever found my highest demands of kindness accom- 
plished; nay, even my fondest wishes not gratified 
only, but anticipated." That Mrs. IVPLehose was 
innocent of all criminal thoughts and intentions, it 
is believed no candid mind can doubt, after reading 
the following series of letters. Her love was, in- 
deed, a flame " where innocence looked smiling on, 
and honour stood by, a sacred guard." Yet it may 
doubted whether any married woman should 
have permitted herself to continue in circumstances 
of such temptation ; certain it is, that few women 
could have come out of such a trial untarnished. 
But she did come forth unblemished, and live to a 
good old age, respected and beloved by all who 



66 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

knew her. This could not have been the case if 
there had been any spot in her character for scandal 
to point the finger at. Her attachment she had 
early revealed to her clergyman, and even taken his 
advice about it. It was a subject of conversation 
with various friends, some of whom even " trembled 
for her peace." Such frankness bears the stamp of 
conscious innocence. 

It has been asserted, in the life of Burns by Allan 
Cunningham, that " in general the raptures of Syl- 
vander are artificial, and his sensibility assumed. 
He puts himself into strange postures and picturesque 
positions, and feels imaginary pains to correspond. 
He wounds himself, to show how readily the sores 
of love can be mended ; and flogs his body like a 
devotee, to obtain the compassion of his patron 
saint." Similar views have been expressed by 
others ; but surely they did not make allowances for 
a man of his ardent and enthusiastic nature. Be-^ 
sides, such opinions were formed upon a considera- 
tion of a portion only of his Letters, without any 
opportunity of perusing those of Clarinda. The 
tenor of the entire correspondence negatives such 
views, and shows that Sylvander took a decided 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 67 

interest in Clarinda from the first ; that the feelings 
expressed by him were really felt, and not assumed : 
for no man can exhibit more earnestness and sincerity 
of purpose ; and, indeed, he seems too soon to have 
hinted at hopes which were visionary. If Sylvander, 
at a later period, seriously entertained such hopes, 
it explains many of his strong expressions of attach- 
ment, otherwise bombastic. It must be admitted 
that several of his letters contain passages offensive 
from their boldness and presumption, which wounded 
the nice sensibility of Clarinda; but these were 
avowedly written after deep potations. His letters in 
general, display his usual acute powers of observation, 
and are written in very various moods of mind. 

It will be observed that matters are discussed in 
the letters, both of Sylvander and Clarinda, and 
seem to have formed the subject of conversation at 
their interviews, which the refinement of more 
modern times does not allow to be introduced — 
hardly alluded to. But it would not be fair to judge 
the manners of the last century by the standard of 
the present. The French Revolution, and the 
stirring events which followed, broke up the old 
order of things. The greatly-increased intercourse 



68 INTRODUCTlOiN TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

since the peace between Great Britain and the dif- 
ferent nations of Europe, as well as between different 
sections of this country, together with the more 
general diffusion of literature and of a higher degree 
of cultivation, have had beneficial effects, quite 
incalculable, in eradicating the dissolute state of 
manners which prevailed during the last century, in 
removing local prejudices, and introducing increased 
refinement of taste, with more correct moral senti- 
ments. 

The visionary hopes entertained by the poet were 
generally checked by Clarinda, with a happy mix- 
ture of dignity and mildness, bespeaking inward 
purity. " Is it not too near an infringement of the 
sacred obligations of marriage, to bestow one's heart, 
"wishes, and thoughts, upon another ? Something 
in my soul whispers that it approaches criminality. 
I obey the voice; let me cast every kind feeling into 
the allowed bond of friendship. If 'tis accompanied 
with a shadow of a softer feeling, it shall be poured 
into the bosom of a merciful God ! If a confession 
of my warmest, tenderest friendship does not satisfy 
you, duty forbids Clarinda should do more." 

Yet it is evident she would not have been much 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 69 

distressed at a circumstance which would have " put 
it in the power of somebody (happy somebody) to 
divide her attention with all the delicacy and tender- 
ness of an earthly attachment ;" for she afterwards 
writes Sylvander, — If I ever take a walk to the 

temple of H [Hymen ?] I'll disclose a cruel 

anguish of soul which I cannot tell you of; but you 
and I (were it even possible) would fall out by the 
way." Yet, oddly enough, a little later she writes 
to him : — " If she dare dispose of it [her heart], 
last night can leave you at no loss to guess the 
man." Indeed, the decease of a worthless husband 
in a West India climate, happen when it might, 
could not have been a matter of surprise, any more 
than of regret. 

Burns left Edinburgh about the middle of April 
1788, to commence his farming operations in Niths- 
dale; and, ere long, he received from "Daddie 
Auld" his certificate as the husband of Jean Armour ; 
but he had, soon after he reached Mauchline, pri- 
vately acknowledged her as his wife. No letters of 
Burns and Mrs. M'Lehose, between his departure 
and the 9th March 1789, are now extant. A serious 
quarrel seems to have taken place in this interval; 
4* 



70 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

and the cause may be easily inferred from his letter 
of that date. The lady was highly incensed ; and 
friendship remained in abeyance till his visit to Edin- 
buro;h in November 1791. In a former visit to 
Edinburgh, the lady had refused to see him ; but just 
previous to this — his last visit to the metropolis — 
she had written to him in behalf of a girl who had 
loved him not " wisely, but too well," and was then 
dying, and in want. In reply, he requested Mrs. 
M'Lehose to relieve her necessities ; and when he 
came to town he called to reimburse the trifling 
outlay which she had advanced, when a complete 
reconciliation seems to have taken place. 

Occasional letters passed between them till 
within a short period of his death. Only one 
of hers remains, in which she takes an earnest fare- 
well of him when about to leave for Jamaica in 
1792. His letters betoken the altered circumstances 
and depressed spirits which characterized the latter 
years of his chequered life. 

With two letters of Mrs. M'Lehose to Mr. Syme, 
who collected materials for Dr. Currie when he was 
preparing his edition of Burns, these preliminary 
remarks will be brought to a close. They admi- 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 71 

rably illustrate the sprightly character of Clarinda, 
and contain some interesting observations respecting 
the immortal bard. 



Extract of Letter. 

MRS. M'LEHOSE to MR. JOHN SYME. 

" What can have impressed such an idea upon 
you, as that I ever conceived the most distant in- 
tention to destroy these precious memorials of an 
acquaintance, the recollection of which would in- 
fluence me were I to live till fourscore ! Be as- 
sured I wall never suffer one of them to perish. 
This I give you my solemn word of honour upon ; 
— nay, more, on condition that you send me my 
letters, I will select such passages from our dear 
bard's letters as will do honour to his memory, and 
cannot hurt my own fame, even with the most rigid. 
His letters, however, are really not literary; they 
are the passionate efTusions of an elegant mind — 
indeed, too tender to be exposed to any but the eye 
of a partial friend. Were the world composed of 
minds such as yours, it w^ould be cruel even to bury 
them : but ah ! how verv few would understand, 



72 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

much less relish, such compositions ! The bulk of 
mankind are strangers to the delicate refinements of 
superior minds." 

MRS. M'LEHOSE to MR. JOHN SYME. 

Edinburgh, 9th January, 1797.* 

"Dear Sir, — lam much obliged to you for the 
speedy return you made to my last letter. What 
could induce you to spend New Year's Day in so 
solitary a manner ? Had I not heard other things 
of you, I should have imagined you in the pre- 
dicament of Hamlet, when he exclaims, ^ Man 
delights not me, nor woman neither.' I have a 
presentiment some melancholy recollection has been 
the cause of your secluding yourself from the world 
on a day when all ranks are devoted to festivity. 
When I first came to Edinburgh it was to me the 
dullest day in the year, because I had been accus- 
tomed to spend it in the society of several of the 
* Charities,' as Milton styles them, who were no 
more. But, for several years past, I have acquired 
friends, with whom I pass it cheerfully, though 
death has deprived me of all near relations except 

* The Editor is indebted to Mr. Robert Chambers for a 
copy of this Letter. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 73 

Lord Craig, (my first cousin,) and a son, who is the 
pride and pleasure of my life. I thought a lady's 
letter, on a subject so near her heart, ought to have 
been answered — even had half an hour been stolen 
from your sleep, and therefore rallied you by a quo- 
tation from Lord Littleton's poem on Lucy pleading 
want of time : for the truth is, you were at a loss 
what to say; you wished not to return the letters, 
and hardly knew how to use the language of de- 
nial — is not this a just statement ? 

' For when a lady's in the case, 
You know all other things give place.' 

Seriously, 1 can easily conceive you must be 
excessively hurried : twenty letters in a day — and 
dry uninteresting stuff! Had I them to write, 
they should be favourites indeed to whom I would 
add one to the score. I had no right to expect you 
to ' epistolize' to me, far less to be a regular corres- 
pondent. Your neglect of Mrs. Riddell is amazing, 
because she is, in my estimation, the first female 
writer I ever saw; and, I am convinced, a good 
soul as ever was, from her uncommon attention to 
our dear B and his family. Besides, I suppose, 



74 INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 

she is an old friend of yours. I am delighted with 
her letters, and reckon her correspondence a great 
acquisition. She sent me Mr. Roscoe's Monody on 
Burns. She tells me 'tis he and Dr. Currie are to 
be his editors. I am happy you have consented to 
return my letters at last, and that my pledge has 
pleased you. Please direct them, put up in a parcel, 
for my usual address, and send them by the Dum- 
fries carrier, who comes here once a-week. You 
must pardon me for refusing to send B.'s. I never 
will. I am determined not to allow them to be out 
of my house ; but it will be quite the same to you, 
as you shall see them all when you come to Edin- 
burgh next month. Do write me previous to your 
arrival, and name the day, that I may be at home 
and guard against our being interrupted in perusing 
these dear memorials of our lamented friend. I hold 
them sacred — too sacred for the public eye ; and I 
am sure you will agree they are so when you see 
them. If any argument could have prevailed on 
me, (and Mrs. R. exhausted all her eloquence could 
dictate,) the idea of their affording pecuniary assist- 
ance was most likely. But I am convinced they 
would have added little to this effect : for I heard 



INTRODUCTION TO THE CORRESPONDENCE. 75 

by a literary conversation here, that it was thought 
by most people there would be too much intended 
to be published ; and that letters especially it was 
nonsense to give, as few would be interested in them. 
This I thought strange, and so will a few enthusias- 
tic admirers of our bard ; but I fear 'tis the general 
voice of the public. I earnestly hope the MSS. 
may turn out as valuable as you suppose them. It 
rejoices me to hear so large a sum is to come from 
other places — and join you in reprobating Caledo- 
nia's capital for her shabby donation. But there 
are few souls anywhere who understood or could 
enter into the relish of such a character as B.'s. 
There was an electricity about him which could 
only touch or pervade a few cast in nature's finest 
mould. I fear I have been inaccurate, for I am 
hurried at present. You always shine when mounted 
on pigmies. I know not whether you may have 
reached the top of Parnassus ; but you have certainly 
gathered some sweet flowers by the way. 

" Yours with regard, 

" Clarinda." 



CORRE SPONLENCE 



SYLVANDER AND CLARINDA. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



LETTER I. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[December 6, 1787.*] 
Madam, — I had set no small store by my tea- 
drinking to-night, and have not often been so disap" 
pointed. Saturday evening I shall embrace the 
opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave 
this town this day se'ennight, and probably I shall 
not return for a couple of twelvemonths; but I 
must ever regret that I so lately got an acquaint- 
ance I shall ever highly esteem, and in whose wel- 
fare I shall ever be warmly interested. Our worthy 
common friend, Miss Nimmo, in her usual pleasant 
way, rallied me a good deal on my new acquaint- 

* Dates within brackets [ ] are given from the internal 
evidence of the letters, and some memoranda made in ]802 by 
Mrs. M'Lehose's son. 



80 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

ance ; and, in the humour of her ideas, I wrote some 
lines, which I enclose you, as I think they have a 
good deal of poetic merit; and Miss Nimmo tells me 
that you are not only a critic but a poetess. Fiction, 
you know, is the native region of poetry; and I 
hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the 
bagatelle as a tolerable off-hand jew d'esprit. I have 
several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave 
with Miss Nimmo or you, if they were worth house- 
room ; as there are scarcely two people on earth by 
whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, 
though at the distance of nine score miles. 
I am. Madam, 

With the highest respect. 

Your very humble servant, 

Robert Burns. 

Thursday Even. 



LETTER 11. 



SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[December Slh.'] 
I can say with truth. Madam, that I never met 
with a person in my life whom I more anxiously 
wished to meet again than yourself To-night I 



SYLVANDER TO CBARINDA. 81 

was to have had that very great pleasure, — I was 
intoxicated with the idea ; but an unlucky fall from 
a coach has so bruised one of my knees that I can't 
stir my leg off the cushion. So, if I don't see you 
again, I shall not rest in my grave for chagrin. I 
was vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner. I 
determined to cultivate your friendship with the 
enthusiasm of religion ; but thus has Fortune ever 
served me. I cannot bear the idea of leaving Edin- 
burgh without seeing you. I know not how to 
account for it — I am strangely taken with some 
people, nor am I often mistaken. You are a stran- 
ger to me; — but I am an odd being. Some yet 
unnamed feelings — things, not principles, but better 
than whims — carry me farther than boasted reason 
ever did a philosopher. 

Farewell ! every happiness be yours. 

Robert Burns. 

Saturday Even., St. James' Sqr., No. 2,* 

* Now No, 30, the south corner house of the west side of 
the Square. 



82 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

LETTER III.* 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Saturday Evening, [December Slh.] 
Inured as I have been to disappointments, I never 
felt more, nay, nor half so severely, for one of the 
same nature ! The cruel cause, too, augments my 
uneasiness. I trust you'll soon recover it. Mean- 
time, if my sympathy, my friendship, can alleviate 
your pain, be assured you possess them. I am 
much flattered at being a favourite of yours. Miss 
Nimmo can tell you how earnestly I had long 

* This is one of the few Letters of which the address has 
been preserved. It is addressed, 

" Mr. Robert Burns, 

Mr. Cruickshanks', 

James' Square." 
Mr. Cruickshanks, with whom Burns stayed during his 
visit to Edinburgh, was one of the masters ol the High 
SchooL 

The address on the letters which Clarinda wrote, have 
generally been obliterated with ink ; while those she re- 
ceived have usually been cut or torn off — to gratify (it is 
supposed) autograph collectors. Sometimes several lines of 
writing on the previous page are thus lost. 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 83 

pressed her to make us acquainted. I had a pre- 
sentiment that we should derive pleasure from the 
society of each other. To-night I had thought of 
fifty things to say to you : how unfortunate this 
prevention ! Do not accuse Fortune : had I not 
known she was blind before, her ill-usage of you 
had marked it sufficiently. However, she is a fickle 
old beldame, and I'd much rather be indebted to 
nature. You shall not leave town without seeing 
me, if I should come along with good Miss Nimmo, 
and call for you. I am determined to see you ; and 
am ready to exclaim with Yorick, " Tut ! are we 
not all relations ?" We are, indeed, strangers in 
one sense — but of near kin in many respects : l^hose 
" nameless feelings" I perfectly comprehend, though 
the pen of a Locke could not define them. Perhaps 
instinct comes nearer their description than either 
" principles or whims." Think ye they have any 
connexion with that " heavenly light which leads 
astray?" One thing I know, that they have a 
powerful effect upon me ; and are delightful when 
under the check oi reason and religion. 

Miss Nimmo was a favourite of mine from the 
first hour I met with her. There is a softness, a 



84 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDKR. 

nameless something about her, that, were I a man, 
old as she is, I should have chosen her before most 
Avomen I know. I fear, however, this liking is not 
mutual. I'll tell you why I think so, at meeting. 
She was in mere jest when she told you I was a 
poetess. I have often composed rhyme, (if not 
reason,) but never one line of 'poetry. The distinc- 
tion is obvious to every one of the least discernment. 
Your lines were truly poetical : give me all you 
can spare. Not one living has a higher relish for 
poetry than I have ] and my reading every thing of 
the kind makes me a tolerable judge. Ten years 
ago such lines from such a hand would have half 
turned my head. Perhaps you thought it might 
have done so even yet ; — and wisely premised, that 
" Fiction was the native region of poetry." Read 
the inclosed, which I scrawled just after reading 
yours. Be sincere ; and own that, whatever merit it 
has, it has not a line resembling poetry. Pardon 
any little freedoms I take with you; if they enter- 
tain a heavy hour, they have all the merit I intended. 
Will you let me know, now and then, how your leg 
is ? If I were your sister y I would call and see 
you ; but 'tis a censorious world this ', and (in this 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 85 

sense) you and I are not of the world. Adieu. 
Keep up your heart, you will soon get well, and we 
shall meet. — Farewell. God bless you. A. M. 



LETTER IV. 

SYLVANDER to CI.ARINDA. 

[December 12//i.] 
I stretch a point, [indeed, my dearest madam, 
when I answer your card on the rack of my pre- 
sent agony. Your friendship, madam ! By heavens, 
I was never proud ?)efore. Your lines, I maintain 
it, are poetry, and good poetry ; mine were, indeed, 
partly fiction, and partly a friendship which, had I 
been so blest as to have met with you in time, 
mio-ht have led me — God of love only knows where. 
Time is too short for ceremonies. 

I swear solemnly, (in all the tenor of my^former 
oath,) to remember you in all the pride and warmth 
of friendship until — I cease to be ! 



86 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDEK. 

To-morroWj and every day, till I see you, you 
shall hear from me. 

Farewell! May you enjoy a better night's re- 
pose than I am likely to have. 



LETTER V. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Saturday Noon, [December I6(h.] 
Miss Nimmo and I had a long conversation 
last night. Little did I suspect that she was of the 
party. Gentle, sweet soul ! She is accusing her- 
self as the cause of your misfortune. It w^as 
in vain I ralhed her upon such an excess of 
sensibility, (as I termed it.) She is lineally de- 
scended from " My Uncle Toby ;" has hopes of 
the Devil, and would not hurt a fly. How could 
you tell me that you were in *' agony ?" I hope 
you would swallow laudanum, and procure some 
ease from sleep. I am glad to hear Mr. Wood 
attends you. He is a good soul, and a safe 
surgeon. I know him a little. Do as he bids, 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 87 

and I trust your leg will soon be quite well. 
When I meet you, I must chide you for writing 
in your romantic style. Do you remember that 
she whom you address is a married woman 1 or, 
Jacob-like, would you wait seven years, and even 
then, perhaps, be disappointed, as he was? No; 
I know you better : you have too much of that 
impetuosity which generally accompanies noble 
minds. To be serious, most people would think, 
by your style, that you were writing to some 
vain, silly woman to make a fool of her — or 
worse. I have too much vanity to ascribe it to 
the former motive, and too much charity to har- 
bour an idea of the latter ; and viewing it as 
the effusion of a benevolent heart upon meeting 
one somewhat similar to itself, I have promised 
you my friendship : it will be your own fault if 
I ever withdraw it. Would to God I had it in 
my power to give you some solid proofs of it ! 
Were I the Duchess of Gordon, you should be 
possessed of that independence which every gener- 
ous mind pants after ; but I fear she is " no Duchess 
at the heart." Obscure as I am (comparatively) 
I enjoy all the necessaries of life as fully as I 



88 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA.. 

desire, and wish for wealth only to procure the 
" luxury of doing good." 

My chief design in writing to you to-day was to 
beg you would not write me often, lest the exer- 
tion should hurt you. Meantime, if my scrawls 
can amuse you in your confinement, you shall have 
them occasionally. I shall hear of you every day 
from my beloved Miss Nimmo. Do you know% the 
very first time I w^as in her house, most of our con- 
versations was about a certain (lame) poet ? I read 
her soul in her expressive countenance, and have 
been attached to her ever since. Adieu ! Be patient. 
Take care of yourself My best wishes attend you. 

A.M. 



LETTER Vr. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[December 20.] 

Your last, my dear madam, had the effect on 
me that Job's situation had on his friends, when 
" they sat down seven days and seven nights as- 
tonished, and spake not a word." — " Pay my ad- 
dresses to a married woman !" I started as if T 



SYLVANDER TO CLAPJNDA, 89 

had seen the ghost of him I had injured : I recol- 
lected my expressions ; some of Ihem indeed were, 
in the law phrase, " habit and repute," which is 
being half guilty. I cannot positively say, madam, 
whether my heart might not have gone astray a 
little; but I can declare, upon the honour of a poet, 
that the vagrant has wandered unknown to me. 
I have a pretty handsome troop of follies of my 
own; and like some other people's retinue, they 
are but undisciplined blackguards : but the luckless 
rascals have something of honour in them ; they 
would not do a dishonest thing. 

To meet with an unfortunate woman, amiable 
and young, deserted and widowed by those who 
were bound by every tie of duty, nature, and grati- 
tude, to protect, comfort, and cherish her; add to 
all, when she is perhaps one of the first of lovely 
forms and noble minds, the mind, too, that hits 
one's taste as the joys of Heaven do a saint, — 
should a vague infant idea, the natural child of 
imagination, thoughtlessly peep over the fence — 
w^ere you, my friend, to sit in judgment, and the 
poor airy straggler brought before you, trembling, 
self-condemned, with artless eyes, brimful of contri- 



90 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

tion, looking wistfully on its judge, — you could not, 
my dear madam, condemn the hapless wretch to 
death " without benefit of clergy !" 

I won't tell you what reply my heart made to 
your raillery of " seven years ;" but I will give you 
what a brother of my trade says on the same allu- 
sion : — 

The Patriarch to gain a wife 
Chaste, beautiful, and young, 
Served fourteen years a painful life, 
And never thought it long. 

Oh were you to reward such cares. 
And life so long would stay, 
Not fourteen but four hundred years 
Would seem but as one day ? 

I have written you this scrawl because I have 
nothing else to do, and you may sit down and find 
fault with it, if you have no better way of con- 
suming your time ; but finding fault with the vaga- 
ries of a poet's fancy is much such another business 
as Xerxes chastising the waves of Hellespont. 

My limb now allows me to sit in some peace ; to 
walk I have yet no prospect of, as I can't mark it 
to the ground. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 91 

I have just now looked over what I have written, 
and it is such a chaos of nonsense that I dare say 
you will throw it into the fire, and call me an idle, 
stupid fellow ; but whatever you think of my brains, 
believe me to be, with the most sacred respect, and 
heartfelt esteem, 

My dear Madam, 
Your humble servant, 

Robert Burns.* 



LETTER VII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA, 

[December 21st.'] 
I beg your pardon, my dear " Clarinda," for the 
fragment scrawl I sent you yesterday. I really 
don't know what I wrote. A gentleman for w^hose 
character, abilities, and critical knowledge, I have 
the highest veneration, called in just as I had begun 
the second sentence, and I would not make the 
porter wait. I read to my much-respected friend 

*■ Between this and the ensuing letter there was probably 
one signed " Clarinda," for the first time, now lost. 



92 S\LVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

several of my own bagatelles, and, among others, 
your lines, which I had copied out. He began 
some criticisms on them, as on the other pieces, 
when I informed him they were the work of a young 
lady in this town ; which, I assure you, made him 
stare. My learned friend seriously protested, that 
he did not believe any young woman in Edinburgh 
w^as capable of such lines ; and, if you know any 
thing of Professor Gregory, you will neither doubt 
of his abilities nor his sincerity. I do love you, if 
possible, still better for having so fine a taste and 
turn for poesy. I have again gone wrong in my 
usual unguarded way ; but you may erase the word, 
and put esteem, respect, or any other tame, Dutch 
expression you please in its place. I believe there 
is no holding converse, or carrying on correspond- 
ence with an amiable woman, much less a gloriously- 
amiable Jjne woman, without some mixture of that 
delicious passion, whose most devoted slave I have, 
more than once, had the honour of being. But 
w^y be hurt or offended on that account ? Can no 
honest man have a prepossession for a fine woman, 
but he must run his head against an intrigue ? 
Take a little of the tender witchcraft of love, and 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 93 

add it to the generous, the honourable sentiments of 
manly friendship, and I know but one more delight- 
ful morsel, which few, few in any rank ever taste. 
Such a composition is like adding cream to straw- 
berries : it not only gives the fruit a more elegant 
richness, but has a peculiar deliciousness of its own. 

I inclose you a few lines I composed on a late 
melancholy occasion. I will not give above five or 
six copies of it at all ; and I would be hurt if any 
friend should give any copies without my consent. 

You cannot imagine, Clarinda, (I like the idea of 
Arcadian names in a commerce of this kind,) how 
much store I have set by the hopes of your future 
friendship. I don't know if you have a just idea of 
my character, but I wish you to see me as I am. I 
am, as most people of my trade are, a strange 
Will-o'-wisp being ; the victim, too frequently, 
of much imprudence, and many follies. My great 
constituent elements are pride and passion : the first 
I have endeavoured to humanize into integrity and 
honour ; the last makes me a devotee, to the warm-* 
est degree of enthusiasm, in love, religion, or friend- 
ship : eitlier cf them, or altogether, as I happen to 
be inspired. 'Tis true, I never saw you but once ; 



94 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

but how much acquaintance did I form with you at 
that once ! Do not think I flatter you, or have a 
design upon you, Clarinda : I have too much pride 
for the one, and too little cold contrivance for the 
other; but, of all God's creatures I ever could 
approach in the beaten way of acquaintance, you 
struck me with the deepest, the strongest, the most 
permanent impression. I say the most permanent, 
because I know myself well, and how far I can 
promise either on my prepossessions or powers. Why 
are you unhappy 1 — and why are so many of our 
fellow-creatures, unworthy to belong to the same 
species with you, blest with all they can wish 1 You 
have a hand all-benevolent to give, — why were you 
denied the pleasure? You have a heart formed, 
gloriously formed, for all the most refined luxuries of 
love, — why was that heart ever wrung ? Clarin- 
da ! shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown 
state of being, where the lavish hand of Plenty shall 
minister to the highest wish of Benevolence, and 
where the chill north-wind of Prudence shall never 
blow over the flowery fields of enjoyment ? If we 
do not, man was made in vain ! I deserved most of 
the unhappy hours that have lingered over my head ; 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 95 

they were the wages of my labour. But what 
unprovoked demon, malignant as hell, stole upon 
the confidence of unmistrusting, busy fate, and 
dashed your cup of life with undeserved sorrow ? 

Let me know how long your stay will be out of 
town : I shall count the hours till you inform me of 
your return. Cursed etiquette forbids your seeing 
me just now ; and so soon as I can w^lk I must bid 
Edinburgh adieu. Lord, why was I born to see 
misery which I cannot relieve, and to meet with 
friends whom I can't enjoy ! I look back with 
the pangs of unavailing avarice on my loss in not 
knowing you sooner. All last winter, — these three 
months past, — what luxury of intercourse have I not 
lost ! Perhaps, though, 'twas better for my peace. 
You see I am either above, or incapable of dissim- 
ulation. I believe it is want of that particular 
genius. I despise design, because I want either 
coolness or wisdom to be capable of it. I am inter- 
rupted. Adieu, my dear Clarinda ! 

Sylvander. 

Friday Evenine. 



96 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 



LETTER Vlir. 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Friday Evening, [Dec 21.] 

I go to the country early to-morrow morning, 
but will be home by Tuesday— sooner than I ex- 
pected. 1 have not time to answer yours as it 
deserves ; nor, had I the age of Methusalem, could I 
answer it in kind. I shall grow vain. Your praises 
were enough, — but those of a Dr. Gregory super- 
added ! Take care : many a " glorious" woman has 
been undone by having her head turned. " Know 
you!" I know you far better than you do me. 
Like yourself, I am a bit of an enthusiast. In religion 
and friendship, quite a bigot — perhaps I could be so 
in love too ; but every thing dear to me in heaven 
and earth forbids ! This is my fixed principle ; and 
the person who would dare to endeavour to remove 
it, I would hold as my chief enemy. Like you, I am 
incapable of dissimulation ; nor am I, as you suppose, 
unhappy. I have been unfortunate j but guilt alone 
could make me unhappy. Possessed of fine children, 
— competence, fame, friends, kind and attentive, 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 97 

— what a monster of ingratitude should I be in 
the eye of Heaven, were I to style myself unhappy ! 
True, I have met with scenes horrible to recollection 
— even at six years' distance; but adversity, my 
friend, is allowed to be the school of virtue. It oft 
confers that chastened softness which is unknown 
among the favourites of Fortune ! Even a mind 
possessed of natural sensibiUty, without this, never 
feels that exquisite pleasure which nature has annexed 
to our sympathetic sorrows. Religion, the only 
refuge of the unfortunate, has been my balm in every 
woe. ! could I make her appear to you as she 
has done to me ! Instead of ridiculing her tenets, 
you would fall down and worship her very sem- 
blance, wherever you found it ! 

I will write you again at more leisure, and notice 
other parts of yours. I send you a simile upon a 
character I don't know if you are acquainted with. 
I am confounded at your admiring my lines. I shall 
begin to question your taste, — but Dr. G. ! When 
I am low-spirited, (which I am at times,) I shall 
think of this as a restoralive. 

Now for the simile : 



98 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

The morning sun shines glorious and bright, 
And fills the heart with wonder and delight ! 
He dazzles in meridian splendour seen, 
Without a blackening cloud to intervene. 
So, at a distance viewed, your genius bright, 
Your wit, your flowing numbers give delight. 
But, ah ! when error's dark'ning clouds arise. 
When passion's thunder, folly's lightning flies, 
More safe we gaze, but admiration dies. 
And as the tempting brightness snares the moth. 
Sure ruin marks too near approach to both. 

Good night, for Clarinda's " heavenly eyes" need 
the earthly aid of sleep. Adieu. 

Cr-ARINDA. 

P. S. — I entreat you not to mention our corres- 
ponding to one on earth. Though I've conscious 
innocence, my situation is a delicate one. 



LETTER IX. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

{January 1, 1788. J 

Many happy returns of this day to you, my dear, 
pleasant friend ! May each revolving year find you 



CLAFJNDA TO SYLVANDER. 99 

iviser and happiei I I embrace the first spare hour 
to fulfil my promise ; and begin with thanking you 
for the inclosed lines — they are very pretty : I like 
the idea of personifying the vices rising in the 
absence of Justice. It is a constant source of re- 
fined pleasure, giving "to airy nothings a local 
habitation and a name," and which people of a 
luxuriant imaginalion only can enjoy. Yet, to a 
mind of a benevolent turn, it is delightful to observe 
how equal the distribution of happiness is among all 
ranks ! If stupid people are rendered incapable of 
tasting the refined pleasures of the intelligent and 
feeling mind, they are likewise exempted from the 
thousand distractions and disquietudes peculiar to 
sensibility. 

I have been staying with a dear female friend, 
who has long been an admirer of yours, and was 
once on the brink of meeting wath you in the house 
of a Mrs. Bruce. She would have been a much 
better Clarinda. She is comely, without being 
beautiful, — and has a large share of sense, taste, 
and sensibility; added to all, a violent penchant for 
poetry. If I ever have an opportunity, I shall make 
you and her acquainted. No wonder Dr. Gregory 



100 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

criticised my lines. I saw several defects in them 
myself; but had neither time nor patience (nor 
ability, perhaps) to correct them. The three last 
verses were longer than the former; and in the 
conclusion, I saw a vile tautology which I could not 
get rid of. But you will not wonder when I tell you, 
that I am not only ignorant of every language ex- 
cept my own, but never so much as knew a syllable 
of the English grammar. If I ever write grammati- 
cally, 'tis through mere habit. I rejoice to hear of 
Dr. Gregory being your particular friend. Though 
unacquainted, I am no stranger to his character : 
where worth unites with abilities, it commands our 
love as well as admiration. Alas! they are too 
seldom found in one character ! Those possessed of 
great talents would do well to remember, that all 
depends upon the use made of them. Shining 
abilities, improperly applied, only serve to accelerate 
our destruction in both worlds. I loved you, for 
your fine taste in poetry, long before I saw you ; so 
shall not trouble myself erasing the same word 
applied in the same way to me. You say, "there 
is no corresponding with an agreeable w^oman 
without a mixture of the tender passion." I believe 



CLAKINDA TO SYLVANDER. 101 

there is no friendship between people of sentiment 
and of different sexes, without a little softness ; but 
when kept within proper bounds, it only serves to 
give a higher relish to such intercourse. Love and 
Friendship are names in every one's mouth ; but few, 
extremely few, understand their meaning. Love 
(or affection) cannot be genuine if it hesitate a 
moment to sacrifice every selfish gratification to the 
happiness of its object. On the contrary, when it 
would purchase that at the expense of this, it 
deserves to be styled, not love, but by a name too 
gross to mention. Therefore, I contend, that an 
honest man may have a friendly prepossession for a 
woman whose soul would abhor the idea of an in- 
trigue with her. These are my sentiments upon 
this subject: I hope they correspond with yours. 
'Tis honest in you to wish me to see you "just as 
you are." I beheve I have a tolerably just idea of 
your character. No wonder ; for had I been a man, 
I should have been you. I am not vain enough to 
think myself equal in abihties; but I am formed 
with a liveliness of fancy, and strength of passion 
little inferior. Situation and circumstances have, 
however, had the effects upon each of us which 



102 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDEE. 

might be expected. Misfortune has wonderfully 
contributed to subdue the keenness of my passions, 
while success and adulation have served to nourish 
and inflame yours. Both of us are incapable of 
deceit, because we want coolness and command of 
our feelings. Art is what I never could attain to, 
even in situations where a little would have been 
prudent. Now and then, I am favoured with a 
salutary blast of " the north wind of Prudence." 
The southern zephyrs of Kindness, too, often send 
up their sultry fogs, and cloud the atmosphere of 
my understanding. I have thought that " Nature " 
threw me off in the same mould, just after you. 
We were born, I believe, in one year. Madam 
Nature has some merit by her work that year. 
Don't you think so? I suppose the carline has 
had a flying visit of Venus and the Graces ; and 
Minerva has been jealous of her attention, and sent 
Apollo with his harp to charm them away. 

But why do you accuse Fate for my misfortunes ? 
There is a noble independence of mind which 1 do 
admire ; but, when not checked by Religion, it is 
apt to degenerate into a criminal arraignment of 
Providence. No " malignant demon," as you 



CLARINPA TO SYLVANDER. 103 

suppose, was "permitted to clash my cup of life 
with sorrow :" it was the kindness of a wise and 
tender Father, who foresaw that I needed chastise- 
ment ere I could be brought to himself. Ah, my 
friend, Religion converts our heaviest misfortunes 
into blessings ! I feel it to be so. These passions, 
naturally too violent for my peace, have been broken 
and moderated by adversity j and, if even that has 
been unablel to conquer my vivacity, what lengths 
might I not have gone, had I been permitted to 
glide along in the sunshine of prosperity. I should 
^ have forgot my future destination, and fixed my 
happiness on the fleeting shadows below ! My hand 
was denied the bliss of giving, but Heaven accepts 
of the wish. My heart was formed for love, and I 
desire to devote it to Him who is the source of love ! 
Yes, we shall surely meet in an " unknown state of 
being," where there will be full scope for every kind, 
heartfelt affection — love without alloy, and without 
end. Your paragraph upon this made the tears 
flow down my face ! I will not tell you the reflec- 
tions which it raised in my mind ; but I wished that 
a heart susceptible of such a sentiment took more 
pains about its accomplishment. I fancy you will 



104 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

not wish me to write again ; you'll think rae too 
serious and grave. I know not how I have been 
led to be so; but I make no excuse, because I must 
be allowed to write to you as I feel, or not at all. 
You say you have humanized pride into " honour 
and integrity." 'Tis a good endeavour ; and could 
you command your too-impetuous passions, it would 
be a more glorious achievement than his who con- 
quered the world, and wept because he had no 
more worlds to subdue. Forgive my freedom with 
you : I never trouble myself with the faults of those 
I don't esteem, and only notice those of friends to 
themselves. I am pleased with friends when they 
tell me mine, and look upon it as a test of real 
friendship. 

I have your poems in loan just now. I've read 
them many times, and with new pleasure. Some- 
lime I shall give you my opinion upon them seve- 
rally. Let me have a sight of some of your " Baga- 
telles," as you style them. If ever I write any 
more, you shall have them ; and I'll thank you to 
correct their errors. I wrote lines on Bishop G., by 
way of blank verse ; but they were what Pope 
describes — " Ten low words do creep in one dull 



OLARINDA TO SYLVANDEU. 105 

line." I believe you (being a genius) have in- 
spired me ; for I never wrote so well before. Pray, 
is Dr. Gregory pious ? I have heard so. I wish I 
knew him. Adieu! You have quantity enough! 
whatever be the quality. Good night. Believe 
me your sincere friend, 

Clarinda. 



LETTER X. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Thursday, Jan. [3iJ 1788. 

J got your lines: they are "in kindP^ I can't 
but laugh at my presumption in pretending to send 
my poor ones to you! but it was to amuse myself 
M. this season, when others are joyous, I am the 
reverse. I have no near relations; and while others 
are with theirs, I sit alone, musing upon several of 
mine with whom I used to be — now gone to the 
land of forgetfulness. 

You have put me in a rhyming humour. The 
moment I read yours, I wrote the following lines — 



106 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDEK. 

Talk not of Love ! it gives me pain — 
For Love has been my foe : 
He bound me in an iron chain ! 
And plunged me deep in woe ! 

But Friendship's pure and lasting joys 
My heart was form'd to prove — 
The worthy object be of those, 
But never talk of Love. 

The "Hand of Friendship" I accept — 
May Honour be our guard ! 
Virtue our intercourse direct, 
Her smiles our dear reward !* 

But I wish to know (in sober prose) how your 
leg is ? I would have inquired sooner had I known 
it wculd have been acceptable. Miss N. informs 
me now and then ; but I have not seen her dear 
face for some time. Do you think you could ven- 
ture this length in a coach, without hurting your- 

* The following stanza was afterwards added by Clarinda 
at the Poet's suggestion ; it is here added from the original 
MS. in her own hand : 

Your thought, if Love must harbour there, 

Conceal it in that thought. 

Nor cause me from my bosom tear 

The very friend I sought. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. ' 107 

self? I go out of town the beginning of the week, 
for a few days. 1 wish you could come to-morrow 
or Saturday. I long for a conversation with you, 
and lameness of body won't hinder that. 'Tis 
really curious — so much fun passing between two 
persons who saw one another only once! Say if 
you think you dare venture; — only let the coach- 
man be " adorned with sobriety." 

Adieu ! Believe me, (on my simple word,) 
Your real friend and well-wisher, 

A. M. 



LETTER XL 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[January 3d.] 
My dear Clarinda, — Your last verses have so 
delighted me, that I have copied them in among 
some of my own most valued pieces, which I keep 
sacred for my own use. Do let me have a few 
now and then. 

Did you, madam, know what I feel when you 
talk of your sorrows ! . 

Good God ! that one, who has so much worth in 



108 SYLVANDER TO CLAllINDA. 

the sight of heaven, and is so amiable to her fellow- 
creatures, should be so unhappy ! I can't venture 
out for cold. My limb is vastly better j but I have 
not any use of it without my crutches. Monday, 
for the first time, I dine in a neighbour's, next door. 
As soon as I can go so far, even in a coach, my first 
visit shall be to you. Write me when you leave 
town, and immediately when you return ; and I ear- 
nestly pray your stay may be short. You can't 
imagine how miserable you made me w^hen you 
hinted to me not to write. Farewell. 

,T, ,,J"^-^ Sylvander. 

i-' \ 



LETTER XII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[Ja7iuarij 4:th.] 
You are right, my dear Clarinda; a friendly 
correspondence goes for nothing, except one write 
their undisguised sentiments. Yours please me for 
their intrinsic merit, as well as because they are 
yours; which, I assure you, is to me a high recom- 
mendation. Your religious sentiments, madam, I 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 109 

revere. If you have, on some suspicious evidence, 
from some lying oracle, learnt that I despise or ridi- 
cule so sacredly-important a matter as real religion, 
you have, my Clarinda, much misconstrued your 
friend. " I am not mad, most noble Festus !" Have 
you ever met a perfect character? Do we not 
sometimes rather exchange faults than get rid of 
them? For instance, I am perhaps tired with and 
shocked at a life too much the prey of giddy incon- 
sistencies and thoughtless follies. By degrees I 
grow sober, prudent, and statedly pious. I say 
statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not 
at all inconsistent with my first character. I join 
the world in congratulating myself on the happy 
change. But let me pry more narrowly into this 
affair. Have I at bottom any thing of a secret pride 
in these endowments and emendations? Have I 
nothing of a Presbyterian sourness, a hypercritical 
severity, when I survey my less regular neigh- 
bours ? In a word, have I missed all those name- 
less and numberless modifications of indistinct self- 
ishness which are so near our own eyes, that we 
can scarce bring them within our sphere of vision, 
6 



110 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

and which the known spotless cambric of our char- 
acter hides from the ordinary observer? 

My definition of worth is short : — truth and hu- 
manity respecting our fellow-creatures; reverence 
and humility in the presence of that Being, my 
Creator and Preserver, and who, I have every 
reason to believe, will one day be ray Judge. The 
first part of my definition is the creature of unbiassed 
instinct; the last is the child of after reflection. 
"Where I found these two essentials, I would gently 
note and slightly mention any attendant flaws — 
flaws, the marks, the consequences of human na- 
ture. 

I can easily enter into the sublime pleasures that 
your strong imagination and keen sensibility must 
derive from religion, particularly if a little in the 
shade of misfortune ; but I own I cannot, without a 
marked grudge, see Heaven totally engross so ami- 
able, so charming a woman as my friend Clarinda ; 
and should be very well pleased at a circumstance 
that would put it in the power of somebody, happy 
somebody ! to divide her attention, with all the deli- 
cacy and tenderness of an earthly attachment. 

You will not easily persuade me that you have 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. Ill 

not a grammatical knowledge of the English lan- 
guage. So far from being inaccurate, you are 
elegant beyond any woman of my acquaintance, 
except one, whom I wish you knew^ 

Your last verses to me have so delighted me, that 
I have got an excellent old Scots air that suits the 
measure, and you shall see them in print in the 
" Scots Musical Museum,'^ — a work publishing by 
a friend of mine in this town. I want four stanzas ; 
you gave me but three, and one of them alluded to 
an expression in my former letter : so I have taken 
your tw^o first verses, w^ith a slight alteration in the 
second, — and have added a third ; but you must 
help me to a fourth. Here they are : the latter 
half of the first stanza w^ould have been worthy of 
Sappho. I am in raptures with it. 

Talk not of Love ! it gives me pain — 
For love has been my foe ; 
He bound me with an iron chain, 
And sunk me deep in woe. 

But Friendship's pure and lasting joys 
My heart was form'd to prove : 
There, welcome win and wear the prize, 
But never talk of love. 



112 SVLVAXDER TO CLARINDA. 

Vour friendship much can make me blest, 
O, why that bliss destroy ? 
Why urge the odious* one request 
You know I must! deny ? 

The alteration in the second stanza is no improve- 
ment ; but there was a slight inaccuracy in your 
rhyme. The third I only ofler to your choice, and 
have left two words for your determination. The 
air is *' The Banks of Spey," and is most beautiful. 

To-morrow evening I intend taking a chair, and 
paying a visit at Park Place, to a much valued old 
friend. If I could be sure of finding you at home, 
(and I will send one of the chairmen to call,) I 
would spend from five to six o'clock with you, as I 
go past. I cannot do more at this time, as I have 
something on my hand that hurries me much. I 
propose giving you the first call, my old friend the 
second, and AJiss Nimmo as I return home. Do not 
break any engagement for me, as I will spend an- 
other evening with you at any rate before I leave 
town. Do not tell me that you are pleased when 
your friends inform you of your faults. I am igno- 
rant what they are; but I am sure they must be 

* Var. '' onlv." t Var. '» will.'" 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 113 

such evanescent trifles, compared with your personal 
and mental accomplishments, that I would despise 
the ungenerous, narrow soul, who would notice any 
shadow of imperfections you may seem to have, any 
other way than in the most delicate agreeable rail- 
lery. Coarse minds are not aware how much they 
injure the keenly feeling tie of bosom-friendship, 
when in their foohsh ofhciousness they mention 
what nobody cares for recollecting. People of nice 
sensibility and generous minds have a certain in- 
trinsic dignity, that fires at being trifled with, or 
lowered, or even too nearly approached. 

You need make no apology for long letters : I 
am even with you. Many happy New Years to 
you, charming Clarinda ! I can't dissemble, were 
it to shun perdition. He who sees you as I have 
done, and does not love you, deserves to be 
damned for his stupidity ! He who loves you and 
would injure you, deserves to be doubly damned for 
his villany ! Adieu. Sylvander. 

P. S. — What would you think of this for a fourth 

stanza ?* 

* * * * 

* The lines which followed have been torn ofFthe original 

MS. 



114 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

LETTER XIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[January 5iA.] 

Some days, some nights, nay, some hours, like 
the " ten righteous persons in Sodom," save the 
rest of the vapid, tiresome, miserable months and 
years of life. One of these hours my dear Cla- 
rinda blest me with yesternight. 

" One well-spent hour, 



In such a tender circumstance for friends, 
Is better than an age of common time !" 

Thomson. 

My favourite feature in Milton's Satan is his 
manly fortitude in supporting what cannot be 
remedied, — in short, the wild broken fragments of a 
noble exalted mind in ruins. I meant no more by 
saying he was a favourite hero of mine. 

I mentioned to you my letter to Dr. Moore, giving 
an account of my life : it is truth, every word of 
it; and will give you the just idea of a man whom 
you have honoured with your friendship. I am 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 115 

afraid you will hardly be able to make sense of so 
torn a piece. Your verses I shall muse on — deli- 
ciously — as I gaze on your image, in my mind's eye, 
in my heart's core : they will be in time enough for 
a week to come. I am truly happy your headache 
is better. 0, how can pain or evil be so daringly, 
unfeelingly, cruelly savage, as to wound so noble a 
mind, so lovely a form ! 

My little fellow is all my namesake.* Write me 
soon. My every, strongest good wish attend you, 

Clarinda ! 

Sylvander. 

Saturday^ JVoon 

I know not what I have written. I am pestered 
with people around me. 

* This was one of the twins born in 1786, and the eldest 
of the Poet's family. He was, long after his father's death, 
placed in the Stamp Office in London, by Lord Sidmouth ; 
from the duties of which he retired some years ago, and now 
resides in Dumfries-shire. 



116 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

LETTER XIV. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Monday JYight, [January 7th.] 

I cannot delay thanking you for the packet of 
Saturday; twice have I read it with close attention. 
Some parts of it did beguile me of my tears. With 
Desdemona, I felt — " 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous 
pitiful." When I reached the paragraph where 
Lord Glencairn is mentioned, I burst out into tears. 
'Tw^as that delightful swell of the heart which arises 
from a combination of the most pleasurable feelings. 
Nothing is so binding to a generous mind as placing 
confidence in it. I have ever felt it so. You seem 
to have known this feature in my character in- 
tuitively; and, therefore, intrusted me with all your 
faults and follies. The description of your first love- 
scene delighted me. It recalled the idea of some 
tender circumstances which happened to myself, at 
the same period of life — only mine did not go so far. 
Perhaps, in return, I'll tell you the particulars when 
we meet. Ah, my friend! our early love emotions 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 117 

are surely the most exquisite. In riper years we 
may acquire more knowledge, sentiment, &c. ; but 
none of these can yield such rapture as the dear de- 
lusions of heart-throbbing youth ! Like yours, mine 
was a rural scene, too, which adds much to the ten- 
der meeting. But no more of these recollections. 

One thing alone hurt me, though I regretted many 
— your avowal of being an enemy to Calvinism. I 
guessed it was so by some of your pieces; but the 
confirmation of it gave me a shock I cou]d only have 
felt for one I was interested in. You will not won- 
der at this, when I inform you that I am a strict 
Calvinist, one or two dark tenets excepted, which I 
never meddle with. Like many others, you are so, 
either from never having examined it with candour 
and impartiality, or from having unfortunately met 
with weak professors, who did not understand it ; 
and hypocritical ones, who made it a cloak for their 
knavery. Both of these, T am aware, abound in 
country life ; nor am I surprised at their having had 
this effect upon your more enlightened understand- 
ing. I fear your friend, the captain of the ship, 
Avas of no advantage to you in this and many other 
respects. 



118 CLARINDA TO SYLVANUER. 

My dear Sylvander, I flatter myself you have 
some opinion of Clarinda's understanding. Her 
belief in Calvinism is not (as you will be apt to 
suppose) the prejudice of education. I was bred by 
my father in the Arminian principles. My mother, 
who was an angel, died when I was in my tenth 
year. She was a Calvinist, — was adored in her 
life, — and died triumphing in the prospect of im- 
mortality. I was too young, at that period, to know 
the difference ; but her pious precepts and example 
often recurred to my mind, amidst the giddiness and 
adulation of Miss in her teens. 'Twas since I came 
to this town, five years ago, that I imbibed my pres- 
ent principles. They were those of a dear, valued 
friend, in whose judgment and integrity I had entire 
confidence. I listened often to him, with dehght, 
upon the subject. My mind was docile and open to 
conviction. I resolved to investigate, with deep 
attention, that scheme of doctrine which had such 
happy effects upon him. Conviction of understand- 
ing, and peace of mind, were the happy consequences. 
Thus have I given you a true account of my faith. I 
trust my practice will ever correspond. Were I to 
narrate my past life, as honestly as you have done, 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 119 

you would soon be convinced that neither of us could 
hope to be justified by our good works. 

If you have time and inclination, I should wish to 
hear your chief objections to Calvinism. They have 
been often confuted by men of great minds and ex- 
emplary lives, — but perhaps you never inquired into 
these. Ah, Sylvander! Heaven has not endowed 
you with such uncommon powers of mind, to employ 
them in the manner you have done. This long, 
serious subject will, I know, have one of three effects : 
either to make you laugh in derision — yawn in su- 
pine indifference — or set about examining the hith- 
erto-despised subject. Judge of the interest Clarinda 
takes in you when she affirms, that there are but few 
events could take place that would afford her the 
heart-felt pleasure of the latter. 

Read this letter attentively, and answer me at 
leisure. Do not be frightened at its gravity, — 
believe me, I can be as lively as you please. Though 
I wish Madam Minerva for my guide, I shall not be 
hindered from rambling sometimes in the fields of 
Fancy. I must tell you that I admire your narrative, 
in point of composition, beyond all your other pro- 
ductions. One thing lam afraid of; there is not a 



120 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

trace of friendship towards a female : now, in the 
case of Clarinda, this is the only " consummation 
devoutly to be wished." 

You told me you had never met with a woman 
who could love as ardently as yourself. I believe it ; 
and would advise you never to tie yourself, till you 
meet with such a one. Alas ! you'll find many who 
canna, and some who manna ; but to be joined to 
one of the former description would make you miser- 
able. I think you had almost best resolve against 
wedlock ; for, unless a woman were qualified for the 
companion, the friend, and the mistress, she would 
not do for you. The last may gain Sylvander, but 
the others alone can keep him. Sleep, and want of 
room, prevent my explaining myself upon "infidelity 
in a husband," which made you stare at me. This, 
and other things, shall be matter for another letter, 
if you are not wishing this to be the last. If agree- 
able to you, I'll keep the narrative till we meet. 
Adieu ! " Charmino; Clarinda" must e'en resign 
herself to the arms of Morpheus. 

Your true friend, 

Clarinda. 

P. S. — Don't detain the porter. Write when 
convenient. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 121 

I am probably to be in your square this afternoon, 
near two o'clock. If your room be to the street, I 
shall have the pleasure of giving you a nod. I 
have paid the porter, and you may do so when 
you write. I'm sure they sometimes have made us 
pay double. Adieu! 

Tuesday Mornings 



LETTER XV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[January Sth.'\ 

I am delighted, charming Clarinda, with your 
honest enthusiasm for religion. Those of either sex, 
but particularly the female, who are lukewarm in 
that most important of all things, — " my soul, come 
not thou into their secrets !" 

I feel myself deeply interested in your good opin- 
ion, and will lay before you the outlines of my 
belief: He who is our Author and Preserver, and 
will one day be our Judge, must be, — not for his 
sake, in the way of duty, but from the native impulse 
of our hearts, — the object of our reverential awe and 



122 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

grateful adoration. He is almighty, and all-bounte- 
ous : we are weak and dependent : hence, prayer 
and every other sort of devotion. " He is not will- 
ing that any should perish, but that all should come 
to everlasting life ;" consequently, it must be in every 
one's power to embrace His offer of " everlasting 
life ;" otherwise he could not in justice condemn 
those who did not. A mind pervaded, actuated, and 
governed by purity, truth, and charity, though it does 
not merit heaven, yet is an absolutely-necessary 
prerequisite, without which heaven can neither be 
obtained nor enjoyed ; and, by Divine promise, such 
a mind shall never fail of attaining " everlasting life :" 
hence, the impure, the deceiving, and the uncharita- 
ble exclude themselves from eternal bliss, by their 
unfitness for enjoying it. The Supreme Being has 
put the immediate administration of all this — for 
wise and good ends known to himself — into the 
hands of Jesus Christ, a great Personage, whose 
relation to Him we cannot comprehend, but whose 
relation to us is a Guide and Saviour ; and who, 
except for our own obstinacy and misconduct, will 
bring us all, through various ways and by various 
means, to bliss at last. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 123 

These are my tenets, my lovely friend; and which, 
I think, cannot be well disputed. My creed is pretty 
nearly expressed in the last clause of Jamie Dean's 
grace, an honest weaver in Ayrshire : '' Lord, grant 
that we may lead a gude life ! for a gude life maks 
a gude end ; at least it helps weel." 

I am flattered by the entertainment you tell me 
you have found in my packet. You see me as 
I have been, you know me as I am, and may guess 
at what I am likely to be. I, too, may say, " Talk 
not of love," &c.; for, indeed, he has "plunged me 
deep in woe !" Not that I ever saw a woman who 
pleased unexceptionably, as my Clarinda elegantly 
says, " in the companion, the friend, and the mis- 
tress." One, indeed, I could except ; one, before 
passion threw its mists over my discernment, I knew 
the first of women ! Her name is indelibly written 
in my heart's core ; but I dare not look in on it, — a 
degree of agony would be the consequence. Oh, 
thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who 
presidest o'er that frantic passion, — thou mayest, 
thou dost poison my peace, but shalt not taint my 
honour ! I would not for a single moment give an 
asylum to the most distant imagination that would 



124 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

shadow the faintest outline of a selfish gratification 
at the expense of her, whose happiness is twisted 
with the threads of my existence. May she be 
happy, as she deserves ! And if my tenderest, faith- 
fulest friendship can add to her bliss, I shall, at 
least, have one solid mine of enjoyment in my bosom ! 
DonH guess at these ravings ! 

I watched at our front window to-day, but was 
disappointed. It has been a day of disappoint- 
ments. I am just risen from a two hour's bout, 
after supper, with silly or sordid souls, who could 
relish nothing- in common with me but the Port. 
" One !" — 'Tis now the " witching time of night," 
and whatever is out of joint in the foregoing scrawl, 
impute it to enchantments and spells; for I can't 
look over it, but will seal it up directly, as I don't 
care for to-morrow's criticisms on it. 

You are by this time fast asleep, Clarinda ; may 
good angels attend and guard you as constantly 
and as faithfully as my good wishes do ! 

"Beauty which, whether waking or asleep, 
Shot forth peculiar graces." 

John Milton, I wish thy soul better rest than I 
expect on my pillow to-night ! O for a little of 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 125 

the cart-horse part of human nature ! Good night, 

my dearest Clarinda ! 

* Sylvander. 

Tuesday JVight. 



LETTER XVI. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Wednesday^ 10 P. M., [January 9tli.'] 

This moment your letter Avas delivered to me. 
My boys are asleep. The youngest has been for 
some time in a crazy state of health, but has been 
worse these two days past. Partly this and the 
badness of the day prevented my exchanging a 
heartfelt how d'ye, yesterday. Friday, if nothing 
prevents, I shall have that pleasure, about two 
o'clock, or a little before it. 

I "wonder how you could write so distinctly after 
two or three hours over a bottle; but they were 
not congenial whom you sat with, and therefore 
your spirits remained unexhausted ; and, when quit 
of them, you fled to a friend who can relish most 
things in common with you (except port.) 'Tis 
dreadful what a variety of these "silly, sordid" 



126 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

souls one meets with in life ! but in scenes of mere 
sociability these pass. In reading the account you 
give of your inveterate turn for social pleasure, I 
smiled at its resemblance to my own. It is so 
great, that I often think I had been a man, but for 
some mistake of nature. If you saw me in a merry 
party, you would suppose me only an enthusiast in 
fun ; but I now avoid such parties. My spirits are 
sunk for days after ; and, what is worse, there are 
sometimes dull or malicious souls who censure me 
loudly for what their sluggish natures cannot com- 
prehend. Were I possessed of an independent for- 
tune, I would scorn their pitiful remarks; but 
every thing in my situation renders prudence neces- 
sary. 

I have slept little these two nights. My child 
was uneasy, and that kept me awake watching 
vhim! Sylvander, if I have merit in any thing, 
'tis in an unremitting attention to my two children; 
but it cannot be denominated merit, since 'tis as 
much inclination as duty. A prudent woman (as 
the world goes) told me she was surprised I loved 
them, "considering what a father they had." I 
replied with acrimony, I could not but love my chil- 



, CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 127 

dren in any case; but my having given them the 
misfortune of such a father, endears them doubly to 
my heart: they are innocent — they depend upon 
me — and I feel this the most tender of all claims. 
While I live, my fondest attention shall be theirs ! 

All my life I loved the unfortunate, and ever 
will. Did you ever read Fielding's Amelia? If 
you have not, I beg you would. There are scenes 
in it, tender, domestic scenes, which I have read 
over and over, with feehngs too dehghtful to de- 
scribe ! I meant a " Booth," as such a one infi- 
nitely to be preferred to a brutal, though perhaps 
constant husband. I can conceive a man fond of 
his wife, yet (Sylvander-like) hurried into a mo- 
mentary deviation, while his heart remained faith- 
ful. If he concealed it, it could not hurt me j but 
if, unable to bear the anguish of self-reproach, he 
unbosomed it to me, I would not only forgive him, 
but comfort and speak kindly, and in secret only 
weep. Reconciliation, in such a case, would be 
exquisite beyond almost any thing I can conceive ! 
Do you now understand me on this subject? I was 
uneasy till it was explained; for all I have said, It 
know not if I had been an " Amelia," even with a 



128 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

" Booth." My resentments are keen, like all ray 
other feelings; I am exquisitively alive to kind- 
ness and to unkindness. The first binds me for 
ever ! But I have none of the spaniel in my na- 
ture. The last would soon cure me, though I loved 
to distraction. But all this is not, perhaps, interest- 
ing to Sylvander. I have seen nobody to-day; 
and, like a true egotist, talk away to please myself. 
I am not in a humour to answer your creed to- 
night. 

I have been puzzling my brain about the fair one 
you bid me " not guess at." I first thought it your 
Jean ; but I don't know if she now possesses your 
"tenderest, faithfulest friendship." I can't under- 
stand that bonny lassie: her refusal, after such 
proofs of love, proves her to be either an angel or a 
dolt. I beg pardon ; I know not all the circum- 
stances, and am no judge therefore. I love you for 
your continued fondness, even after enjoyment : few 
of your sex have souls in such cases. But I take 
this to be the test of true love — mere desire is all the 
bulk of people are susceptible of; and that is soon 
satiated. " Your good wishes." You had mine, 
Sylvander, before I saw you. You will have them 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 129 

while I live. With you, I wish I had a little of the 
cart-horse in me. You and I have some horse prop- 
erties ; but more of the eagle, and too much of the 

turtle dove ! Good night ! 

Your friend, 

Clarinda. 

Thursday Morning. 

This day is so good that I'll make out my call to 
your square. I am laughing to myself at announ- 
cing this for the third time. Were she who " poi- 
sons your peace," to intend you a Pisgah view, she 
could do no more than I have done on this trivial 
occasion. Keep a good heart, Sylvander. The 
eternity of your love-sufferings will be ended before 
six weeks. Such perjuries the "Laughing gods 
allow." But remember, there is no such toleration 

in friendship, and 

I am yours, 

Clarinda. 



LETTER XVIL 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

^January 10th. } 

I am certain I saw you, Clarinda ; but you don't 
look to the proper story for a poet's lodging, 



130 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

"Where Speculation roosted near the sky." 

I could almost have thrown myself over, for very 
vexation. Why didn't .you look higher ? It has 
spoilt my peace for this day. To be so near my 
charming Clarinda ; to miss her look while it w^as 
searching for me. I am sure the soul is capable 
of disease ; for mine has convulsed itself into an 
inflammatory fever. I am sorry for your little 
boy : do let me know to-morrow how he is. 

You have converted me, Clarinda, (I shall love 
that name while I live : there is heavenly music 
in it.) Booth and Amelia I know well. Your 
sentiments on that subject, as they are on every 
subject, are just and noble. " To be feelingly 
alive to kindness and to unkindness," is a charm- 
ing female character. 

What I said in my last letter, the powers of fud- 
dling sociality only know for me. By yours, I under- 
stand my good star has been partly in my horizon, 
when I got wild in my reveries. Had that evil 
planet, which has almost all my life shed its bale- 
ful rays on my devoted head, been as usual in 
its zenith, I had certainly blabbed something 
that would have pointed out to you the dear 



SYLVANDER TO CLARLNDA. 131 

object of my tenderest friendship, and, in spite of 
me, something more. Had that fatal informa- 
tion escaped me, and it was merely chance or kind 
stars that it did not, I had been undone ! You 
\vould never have written me, except, perhaps, 
once more ! O, I could curse circumstances ! and 
the coarse tie of human laws which keeps fast 
what common sense would loose, and which bars 
that happiness itself cannot give — happiness which 
otherwise love and honour would warrant ! But 
hold — I shall make no more " hair-breadth 'scapes." 
My friendship, Clarinda, is a different business. 
My hkings are both strong and eternal. I told 
you I had but one male friend : I have but two 
female. I should have a third, but she is sur- 
rounded by the blandishments of flattery and 
courtship. Her I register in my heart's core by 
Peggy Chalmers :* Miss Nimmo can tell you 
how divine she is. She is worthy of a place in 

* Miss Margaret Chalmers was a highly valued friend of 
Burns, with whom he corresponded, and upon whom he 
wrote one or two songs. In 1788 she married Mr. Lewis 
Hay, a partner in the Banking-house of Sir William Forbes 
<fe Co. She resided many years at Pau, in Berne, where she 
died at an advanced age in the spring of 1843. 



132 CLAtllNDA TO SYLVANDER. 

the same bosom with my Clarinda. That is the 

highest compliment I can pay her. Farewell, 

Clarinda ! Remember 

Sylvandek. 
Thursday, Noon. 



LETTER XVIII. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Thursdaij, Evc.^ \Januarij 10^/«,] 

I could not see you, Sylvander, though I had 
twice traversed the square. I'm persuaded you 
saw not me neither. I met the young lady I 
meant to call for first; and returned to seek 
another acquaintance, but found her moved. All 
the time, my eye soared to poetic heights, alias 
garrets, but not a glimpse of you could I obtain ! 
You surely was within the glass, at least. I re- 
turned, finding my intrinsic dignity a good deal 
hurt, as I missed my friend. Perhaps I shall 
see you again next week : say how" high you 
are. Thanks for your inquiry about my child; 
his complaints are of a tedious kind, and require 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 133 

patience and resignation. Religion has taught me 
both. By nature I inherit as little of them as a 
certain harum-scarum friend of mine. In what re- 
spects has Clarinda " converted you ?" Tell me. 
It were an arduous task indeed ! 

Your " ravings" last night, and your ambiguous 
remarks upon them, I cannot, perhaps ought not to 
comprehend. I am your friend, Sylvander : take 
care lest virtue demand even friendship as a sacrifice. 
You need not curse the tie of human laws ; since 
what is the happiness Clarinda would derive from 
being loosed 1 At present, she enjoys the hope of 
having her children provided for. In the other case, 
she is left, indeed, at liberty, but half dependent on 
the bounty of a friend, — kind in substantials, but 
having no feelings of romance ; and w-ho are the 
generous, the disinterested, who would risk the 
world's " dread laugh" to protect her and her little 
ones ? Perhaps a Sylvander-like son of " whim 
and fancy" might, in a sudden fit of romance : but 
w^ould not ruin be the consequence ? Perhaps one 
of the former • * * * yet if he was not 
dearer to her than all the w^orld — such are still her 
romantic ideas — she could not be his. 
7 



134 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDEE. 

You see, Sylvander, you have no cause to regret 
my bondage. The above is a true picture. Have 
I not reason to rejoice that I have it not in my power 
to dispose of myself? *' I commit myself into thy 
hands, thou Supreme Disposer of all events ! do 
with me as seemeth to thee good." Who is this 
one male friend ? I know your third female. Ah, 
Sylvander ! many " that are first shall be last," and 
vice versa ! I am proud of being compared to Miss 
Chalmers : I have heard how amiable she is. She 
cannot be more so than Miss Nimmo : w^hy do ye 
not register her also ? She is warmly your friend ; 
— surely you are incapable of ingratitude. She has 
almost w^ept to me at mentioning your intimacy 
■with a certain famous or infamous man in town. 
Do you think Clarinda could anger you just now ? 
I composed lines addressed to you some time ago, 
containing a hint upon the occasion. I had not 
courage to send them then : if you say you'll not be 
angry, I will yet. 

I know not how^ 'tis, but I felt an irresistible 
impulse to WTite you the moment I read yours. I 
have a design in it. Part of your interest in me is 
owing to mere novelty. You'll be tired of my cor- 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 135 

respondence ere you leave town, and will never fash 
to write me from the country. I forgive you in a 
" state of cehbacy." Sylvander, I wish I saw you 
happily married : you are so formed, you cannot 
be happy without a tender attachment. Heaven 
direct you ! 

When you see Bishop Geddes,* ask him if he 
remembers a lady at Mrs. Kemp's, on a Sunday 
night, who listened to every word he uttered with 
the gaze of attention. I saw he observed me, and 
returned that glance of cordial warmth which as- 
sured me he was pleased w^ith my delicate flattery. 
I wished that night he had been my father, that I 
might shelter me in his bosom. 

■" Bishop Geddes was the first clergyman of the Roman 
Catholic persuasion who had the degree of LL. D. conferred 
upon him after the Reformation. This took place in 1779; 
and redounds to the honour of the University of Aberdeen. 

Soon afterwards, Bishop Geddes removed to London, and 
devoted himself to a new translation of the Scriptures, under 
the patronage of Lord Petre. Having, in the course of his 
studies, seen cause to change some of his views respecting 
scriptural authority and doctrine, he was viewed with dis- 
trust by those who considered themselves orthodox. 

Bishop Geddes was a man of talents and learning, and 
published various works. He died in 1802. 



136 CLAKINDA TO SYLVANDEK. 

You shall have this, as you desired, to-morrow ; 
and, if possible, none for four or five days. I say, 
if possible ; for I really can't but write, as if I had 
nothing else to do. I admire your Epitaph ; but 
while I read it, my heart swells at the sad idea of its 
realization. Did you ever read Sancho's Letters ? 
they would hit your taste. My next will be on my 
favourite theme — religion. 

Farewell, Sylvander ! Be wise, be prudent, and 
be happy. 

Clarinda. 

Let your next be sent in the morning. 

If you were well, I would ask you to meet 
me to-morrow, at twelve o'clock. I go down in 
the Leith Fly, with poor Willie : what a pleasant 
chat we might have ! But I fancy 'tis impossible. 
Adieu ! 

Friday, One o'clock. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 137 

LETTER XIX. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Saturdmj Mornings [January l^th.] 

Your thoughts on religion, Clarinda, shall be 
welcome. You may perhaps distrust me when I 
say 'tis also my favourite topic ; but mine is the 
religion of the bosom. I hate the very idea of 
controversial divinity; as I firmly beheve that 
every honest, upright man, of whatever sect, will 
be accepted of the Deity. If your verses, as you 
seem to hint, contain censure, except you want an 
occasion to break with me, don't send them. I 
have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where 
I fondly love or highly esteem, I cannot bear re- 
proach. 

" Reverence thyself," is a sacred maxim ; and I 
wdsh to cherish it. I think I told you Lord Boling- 
broke's saying to Swift, — " Adieu, dear Swift ! with 
all thy faults I love thee entirely : make an effort 
to love me with all mine." A glorious sentiment, 
and without which there can be no friendship ! I 



138 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

do highly, very highly, esteem you indeed, Clarinda : 
you merit it all ! Perhaps, too — I scorn dissimula- 
tion — I could fondly love you : judge, then, what a 
maddening sting your reproach would be. " Oh, I 
have sins to heaven, but none to you." With what 
pleasure would I meet you to-day, but I cannot walk 
to meet the Fly. I hope to be able to see you, on 
foot, about the middle of next week. I am inter- 
rupted — perhaps you are not sorry for it. You 
will tell me : but I won't anticipate blame. 0, 
Clarinda ! did you know how dear to me is your 
look of kindness, your smile of approbation, you 
would not, either in prose or verse, risk a censorious 
remark. 

" Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, 
That tends to make one worthy man my foe." 

Sylvander.* 

* Between this and the ensuing letter there was probably 
one of Clarinda's, now lost. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 139 

LETTER XX. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[January 'i2th.] 

You talk of weeping, Clarinda : some involuntary 
drops wet your lines as I read them. Offend me, my 
dearest angel ! You cannot offend me, — you never 
offended me. If you had ever given me the least 
shadow of offence, so pardon me my God as I for- 
give Clarinda. I have read yours again ; it has 
blotted my paper. Though I find your letter has 
agitated me into a violent headache, I shall take a 
chair and be with you about eight. A friend is to 
be with us at tea, on- my account, which hinders me 
from comi-ng sooner. Forgive, my dearest Clarinda, 
my unguarded expressions ! For Heaven's sake, 
forgive me, or I shall never be able to bear my own 
mind. 

Your unhappy 

Sylvander. 



140 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

LETTER XXI. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Sunday Evenings [January IZth.'] 

I will not deny it, Sylvander, last night ^\'as one 
of the most exquisite I ever experienced. Few 
such fall to the lot of mortals ! Few, extremely 
few, are formed to relish such refined enjoyment. 
That it should be so, vindicates the wisdom of 
Heaven. But, though our enjoyment did not lead 
beyond the limits of virtue, yet to-day's reflections 
have not been .altogether unmixed with regret. 
The idea of the pain it would have given, w^ere it 
known, to a friend to W'hom I am bound, by the 
sacred ties of gratitude, (no more,) the opinion 
Sylvander may have formed from my unreserved- 
ness; and, above all, some secret misgivings that 
Heaven may not approve, situated as I am, — these 
procured me a sleepless night ; and, though at 
church, I am not at all well. 

Sylvander, you saw Clarinda last night, behind 
the scenes! Now, you'll be convinced she has 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 141 

faults. If she knows herself, her intention is always 
good ', but she is too often the victim of sensibility, 
and, hence, is seldom pleased with herself. A ren- 
contre to-day I will relate to you, because it will 
show you I have my own share of pride. I met 
w^ith a sister of Lord Napier, at the house of a 
friend, with whom I sat between sermons : I knew 
who she was ; but paid her no other marks of re- 
spect than I do to any gentlewoman. She eyed me 
with minute, supercilious attention, never looking 
at me, when I spoke, but even half interrupted me, 
before I had done addressing the lady of the house. 
I felt my face glow wath resentment, and consoled 
myself with the idea of being her superior in every 
respect but the accidental, trifling one of birth ! I 
w^as disgusted at the fawning deference the lady 
showed her ; and when she told me at the door that 
it was my Lord Napier's sister, I replied, " Is it, in- 
deed ? by her ill-breeding I should have taken her 
for the daughter of some upstart tradesman !" 

Sylvander, my sentiments as to birth and fortune 
are truly unfashionable : I despise the persons who 
pique themselves on either, — the former especially. 
Something may be allowed to bright talents, or even 



142 CLARINDA. TO SYLVANDER. 

external beauty — these belong to us essentially; 
but birth in no respect can confer merit, because it 
is not our own. A person of a vulgar uncultivated 
mind, I would not take to my bosom, in any station ; 
but one possessed of natural genius, improved by 
education and diligence, such an one Pd take for my 
friend, be her extraction ever so mean. These, 
alone, constitute any real distinction between man 
and man. Are we not all the offspring of Adam ? 
have we not one God ? one Saviour ? one Immor- 
tality? I have found but one among all my ac- 
quaintance who agreed with me — my Mary,* whom 
I mentioned to you. I am to spend to-morrow with 
her, if I am better. I like her the more that she 
likes you. 

I intended to resume a little upon your favourite 
topic, the " Religion of the Bosom." Did you ever 

* Miss Mary Peacock, afterwards the second wife of Mr. 
James Gray, of the High School of Edinburgh. They were 
both intimate friends of Mrs. M'Lchose for many years. 

Late in life Mr. Gray went out to India as a chaplain, in 
the service of the East India Company. Honourable men- 
tion is made of them, in " Mrs. Elwood's Overland Journey 
to India." 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 143 

imagine that I meant any other ? Poor were that 
religion and unprofitable, whose seat was merely in 
the brain. In most points we seem to agree : only 
I found all my hopes of pardon and acceptance 
with Heaven upon the merit of Christ's atone- 
ment, — whereas you do upon a good life. You 
think " it helps weel, at least." If any thing we 
could do had been able to atone for the violation of 
God's Law, where was the need, (I speak it with 
reverence,) of such an astonishing Sacrifice ? Job 
was an "upright man." In the dark season of 
adversity, when other sins were brought to his re- 
membrance, he boasted of his integrity; but no 
sooner did God reveal Himself to him, than he 
exclaims, " Behold, I am vile, and abhor myself 
in dust and ashes." Ah ! my friend, 'tis pride 
that hinders us from embracing Jesus ! we would 
be our own Saviour, and scorn to be indebted even 
to the " Son of the Most High." But this is the 
only sure foundation of our hopes. It is said by 
God Himself, " 'tis to some a stumbling-block : to 
others foolishness;" but they vrho believe, feel it 
to be the " Wisdom of God, and the Power of 
God." 



144 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

If my head did not ache, I would continue the 
subject. I, too, hate controversial religion ; but 
this is the " Religion of the Bosom." My God ! 
Sylvander, why am I so anxious to make you 
embrace the Gospel ! I dare not probe too deep 
for an answer — let your heart answer : in a word — 
Benevolence. When I return, I'll finish this. Mean- 
time, adieu ! Sylvander, I intended doing you good : 
if it prove the reverse, I shall never forgive myself. 
Good night. 

Tuesday, JVoon. — Just returned from the Dean, 
where I dined and supped with fourteen of both 
sexes: all stupid. My Mary and I alone under- 
stood each other. However, we were joyous, and 
I sung in spite of my cold ; but no wit. 'Twould 
have been pearls before swine literalized. I recol- 
lect promising to write you. Sylvander, you'll 
never find me worse than my word. If you have 
written me, (which I hope,) send it to me when 
convenient, either at nine in the morning or evening. 
I fear your limb may be worse from staying so late. 
I have other fears, too : guess them ! Oh ! my 
friend, I wnsh ardently to maintain your esteem ; 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 145 

rather than forfeit one iota of it, I'd be content never 
to be wiser than now. Our last interview has 
raised you very high in mine. I have met with few, 
indeed, of your sex w^ho understood delicacy in such 
circumstances ; yet 'tis that only which gives a 
relish to such delightful intercourse. Do you wish 
to preserve my esteem, Sylvander ? do not be proud 
to Clarinda ! She deserves it not. I subscribe to 
Lord B.'s sentiment to Swift; yet some faults 1 
shall still sigh over, though you style it reproach 
even to hint them. Adieu ! You have it much in 
your power to add to the happiness or unhappiness 
of Clarinda. 



LETTER XXn. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Monday Evening, 11 o'cloclc, [Jan. XAth.'] 

Why have I not heard from you, Clarinda 1 

To-day I expected it ; and, before supper, when 

a letter to me was announced, my heart danced 

with rapture ; but behold, 'twas some fool who had 



146 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

taken into his head to turn poet, and made me an 
offering of the first fruits of his nonsense. It is not 
poetry, but " prose run mad." 

Did I ever repeat to you an epigram I made on a 
Mr. Elphinstone, who has given a translation of 
Martial, a famous Latin poet ? The poetry of Elphin- 
stone can only equal his prose notes. I was sitting 
in a merchant's shop of my acquaintance, waiting 
somebody ; he put Elphinstone into my hand, and 
asked my opinion of it. I begged leave to write it 
on a blank leaf, which I did. 

TO Mr. elphinstone, &c. 

O thou whom poesy abhors, 
Whom prose has turned out of doors, 
Heardst thou yon groan ? proceed no further, 
'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther. 

I am determined to see you, if at all possible, on 
Saturday evening. Next week I must sing — 

" The night is my departing night, 
The morn's the day I maun awa : 
There's neither friend nor foe of mine, 
But wishes that I were awa. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 147 

" What I hae done for lack o' wit, 
I never, never can reca' ; 
I hope ye're a' my friends as yet. 
Gude night, and joy be wi' you a'." 

If I could see you sooner, I would be so much the 
happier; but I would not purchase the dearest 
gratification on earth, if it must be at your expense 
in worldly censure, far less inward peace. 

I shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawling 
whole sheets of incoherence. The only unity (a 
sad word with poets and critics) in my ideas, is 
Clarinda. — There my heart " reigns and revels." 

" What art thou. Love ? whence are those charms. 

That thus thou bear'st an universal rule ? 
For thee the soldier quits his arms. 

The king turns slave, the wise man fool. 
In vain we chase thee from the field. 

And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke ; 
Next tide of blood, alas ! we yield. 

And all those high resolves are broke !" 

I like to have quotations ready for every occasion. 
They give one's ideas so pat, and save one the 
trouble of finding expression adequate to one's feel- 
ings. I think it is one of the greatest pleasures 



148 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

attending a poetic genius, that we can give our 
woes, cares, joys, loves, &c., an embodied form in 
verse, which, to me, is ever immediate ease. Gold- 
smith says finely of his muse — 

" Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe ; 
Who found'&t me poor at first, and keep'st me so." 

My limb has been so well to-day, that I have gone 
up and down stairs often without my staff. To- 
morrow I hope to walk once again on my own legs 
to dinner. It is only next street. Adieu ! 

Sylvan DER. 



LETTER XXIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Tuesday Evening [January loth.] 

That you have faults, my Clarinda, I never 
doubted ; but I knew not where they existed ; and 
Saturday night made me more in the dark than ever. 
0, Clarinda! why would you wound my soul, by 
hinting that last night must have lessened my opinion 
of you. True, I was behind the scenes with you ; 



SYLVANDEK TO CLARINDA. 149 

but what did I see ? A bosom glowing with 
honour and benevolence ; a mind ennobled by genius, 
informed and refined by education and reflection, 
and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the 
climes of Heaven ; a heart formed for all the glori- 
ous meltings of friendship, love, and pity. These I 
saw. I saw the noblest immortal soul creation ever 
showed me. 

I looked long, my dear Clarinda, for your letter; 
and am vexed that you are complaining. I have 
not caught you so far wrong as in your idea, that 
the commerce you have with one friend hurts you, 
if you cannot tell every tittle of it to another. 
Why have so injurious a suspicion of a good God, 
Clarinda, as to think that Friendship and Love, on 
the sacred, inviolate principles of Truth, Honour 
and Religion, can be any thing else than an object 
of His divine approbation ? 

I have mentioned, in some of my former scrawls, 
Saturday evening next. Do allow^ me to wait on 
you that evening. Oh, my angel ! how soon must 
we part ! — and when can we meet again ? I look 
forward on the horrid interval with tearful eyes. 
What have not I losL|by not knowing you sooner ! 



150 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

I fear, I fear, my acquaintance with you is too short 

to make that lasting impression on your heart I 

could wish. 

Sylvanper. 



LETTER XXIV. 

CLARLNDA to SYLVANDER. 

JVednesdaij Morniftg, [January 16th. ] 

Your mother's wish was fully realized. I slept 
sounder last night than for weeks past — and I had a 
" blylhe wakening :" for your letter was the first 
object my eyes opened on. Sylvander, I fancy you 
and Vulcan are intimates: he has lent you a key 
which opens Clarinda's heart at pleasure, shows you 
W'bat is there, and enables you to adapt yourself to 
its every feeling ! I believe I shall give over waiting 
you. Your letters are too much ! my way is, alas, 
" hedged in ;" but had I, like Sylvander, " the world 
before me," I should bid him, if he had a friend that 
loved me, tell him to write as he does, and " that 
would woo me." Seriously, you are the first letter- 
writer I ever knew. I onlv%onder how you can be 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 151 

fashed with my scrawls. I impute it to partialities. 
Either to-morrow or Friday I shall be happy to see 
you. On Saturday, I am not sure of being alone, or 
at home. Say which you'll come ? Come to tea if 
you please ; but eight will be an hour less liable to 
intrusions. I hope you'll come afoot, even though 
you take a chair home. A chair is so uncommon a 
thing in our neighbourhood, it is apt to raise specula- 
tion — but they are all asleep by ten. I am happy 
to hear of your being able to walk — even to the 
next street. You are a consummate flatterer ; really 
my cheeks glow while 1 read your flights of Fanc}'. 
I fancy you see I like it, when you peep into the 
Repository. I know none insensible to that '^ de- 
lightful essence." If I grow affected or conceited, 
you are alone to blame. Ah, my friend ! these are 
disgusting qualities! but I am not afraid. I know 
any merit I have perfectly — but I know many sad 
counterbalances. 

Your lines on Elphinstone were clever, beyond 
any thing I ever saw of the kind ; I know the char- 
acter — the figure is enough to make one cry. Murder ! 
He is a complete pedant in language ; but are not 
you and I pedants in #)mething else ! Yes, but in 



152 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

far superior things : Love, Friendship, Poesy, 
Religion ! Ah, Sylvander, you have murdered 
HumiUty, and I can say thou didst it. You carry 
your warmth too far as to Miss Napier, (not Nairn;) 
yet I am pleased at it. She is sensible, lively, and 
well liked, they say. She was not to know Clarinda 
was " divine," and therefore kept her distance. She 
is comely, but a thick bad figure, — waddles in her 
pace, and has rosy cheeks. 

I hate myself for being satirical — hate me for it 
too. I'll certainly go to Miers to please you, either 
with Mary or Miss Nimmo. Sylvander, some most 
interesting parts of yours I cannot enter on at pres- 
ent. I dare not think upon parting — upon the 
interval ; but I am sure both are wisely ordered for 
our good. A line in return to tell me which night 
you'll be with me. '^ Lasting impression !" Your 
key might have shown you me better. Say, my 
lover, poet, and my friend, what day next month the 
Eternity will end ? When you use your key, don't 
rummage too much, lest you find I am half as great 
a fool in the tender as yourself. Farewell ! Sylvan- 
der. I may sign, for I am already sealed your 
friend, % Clarinda. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 153 



LETTER X^^ 

SYLVANDER to Cl\eIK^A. 

Sunday JVight^ [January 20th.] 

The impertinence of fools has joined with a return 
of an old indisposition to make me good for nothing 
to-day. The paper has lain before me all this 
evening to write to my dear Clarinda, but 

"Fools rushed on fools, as waves succeed to waves." 

I cursed them in my soul ; they sacrilegiously 
disturb my meditations on her who holds my heart. 
What a creature is man ! A little alarm last night 
and to-day that I am mortal, has made such a revo- 
lution in my spirits I There is no philosophy, no 
divinity, comes half so home to the mind. I have 
no idea of courage that braves Heaven. 'Tis the 
wild ravings of an imaginary hero in .Bedlam. I 
can no more, Clarinda ; I can scarce hold up my 
head ; but I am happy you don't know it, you would 

be so uneasy. 

Sylvander. 



154 SYLVANDER TO CLARINCA. 

Monday Morning. 

I am, my lovely friend, much better this morning, 
on the whole ; but I have a horrid languor on my 
spirits. 

" Sick of the world and all its joy, 
My soul in pining sadness mourns; 
Dark scenes of woe my mind employ, 
The past and present in their turns." 

Have you ever met with a saying of the great and 
likewise good Mr. Locke, author of the famous Essay 
on the Human Understanding ? He wrote a letter 
to a friend, directing it " Not to be delivered till 
after my decease." It ended thus, — " I know you 
loved me w^hen living, and will preserve my memory 
now I am dead. All the use to be made of it is, that 
this life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the con- 
sciousness of having done well, and the hopes of 
another life. Adieu ! I leave my best wishes with 
you. — J. Locke." 

Clarinda, may I reckon on your friendship for 
life ? I think I may. Thou Almighty Preserver of 
men ! thy friendship, w^hich hitherto I have too much 
neglected, to secure it shall, all the future days and 



SYLVANUER TO CLARINPA. 155 

nights of my life, be my steady care. The idea of 
my Clarinda follows : — 

" Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, 
Where, mix'd with God's, her loved idea lies." 

But I fear inconstancy, the consequent imperfection 
of human weakness. Shall I meet with a friendship 
that defies years of absence and the chances and 
changes of fortune? Perhaps "such things are." 
One honest man I have great hopes from that way ; 
but who, except a romance writer, would think on 
a love that could promise for life, in spite of distance, 
absence, chance, and change, and that, too, with 
slender hopes of fruition ? 

For my own partj can I say to myself in both 
requisitions — " Thou art the man." I dare, in cool 
resolve, I dare declare myself that friend and that 
lover. If womankind is capable of such things, 
Clarinda is. I trust that she is ; and feel 1 shall be 
miserable if sheis not. There is not one virtue which 
gives worth, or one sentiment which does honom' to 
the sex, that she does not possess superior to any 
woman I ever saw : her exalted mind, aided a little, 
perhaps, by her situation, is, I think, capable of that 



156 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

nobly-romantic love-enthusiasm. May I see you on 
Wednesday evening, my d^ar angel ? The next 
Wednesday again, will, I conjecture, be a hated day 
to us both. I tremble for censorious remarks, for 
your sake; but in extraordinary cases, may not usual 
and useful precaution be a little dispensed with ? 
Three evenings, three swift-winged evenings, with 
pinions of down, are all the past — I dare not calcu- 
late the future. I shall call at Miss Nimmo to-mor- 
row evening ; 'twill be a farewell call. 

I have Avritten out my last sheet of paper, so I 
am reduced to my last half sheet. What a strange, 
mysterious faculty is that thing called imagination ! 
We have no ideas almost at all, of another world ; 
but I have often amused myself with visionary 
schemes of what happiness might be enjoyed by 
small alterations — alterations that we can fully enter 
to in this present state of existence. For instance : 
suppose you and I just as we are at present ; the 
same reasoning powers, sentiments, and even de- 
sires : the same fond curiosity for knowledge and 
remarking observation in our minds ; and imagine 
our bodies free from pain, and the necessary sup- 
plies for the wants of nature at all times and easily 



SYLVANDER TO CLAEINDA. 157 

within our reach. Imagine, further, that we were 
set free from the laws of gravitation, which bind us 
to this globe, and could at pleasure fly, without 
inconvenience, through all the yet unconjectured 
bounds of creation ; what a life of bliss should we 
lead in our mutual pursuit of virtue and knowleds^e, 
and our mutual enjoyment of friendship and love ! 

I see you laughing at my fairy fancies, and call- 
ing me a voluptuous Mahometan ; but I am certain 
I should be a happy creature, beyond any thino- we 
call bliss here below : nay, it would be a paradise 
congenial to you too. Don't you see us hand in 
hand, or rather, my arm about your lovely waist, 
making our remarks on Sirius, the nearest of the 
fixed stars; or surveying a comet flaming innoxious 
by us, as we just now would mark the passing 
pomp of a travelling monarch ; or, in a shady 
bower of Mercury or Venus, dedicating the hour to 
love, in mutual converse, relying honour, and revel- 
ling endearment, while the most exalted strains of 
poesy and harmony would be the ready, sponta- 
neous language of our souls ! Devotion is the 
favourite employment of your heart ; so is it of 
mine : what incentives then to, and powers for 
8 



158 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

reverence, gratitude, faith, and hope, in all the fer- 
vour of adoration and praise to that Being, \vhose 
unsearchable wisdom, power, and goodness, so per- 
vaded, so inspired, every sense and feeling! By 
this time, I dare say, you will be blessing the neglect 
of the maid that leaves me destitute of paper. 

Sylvander. 



LETTER XXVI. 

SYLVANDER ro CLARIJXDA 

Thursday Mornings [Jan. S4.] 
" Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain." 

I have been tasking my reason, Clarinda, why 
a woman, who, for native genius, poignant wit, 
strength of mind, generous sincerity of soul, and 
the sweetest female tenderness, is without a peer ; 
and whose personal charms have few, very few 
parallels among her sex; w-hy, or how, she should 
fall to the blessed lot of a poor harum-scarum poet, 
whom Fortune had kept for her particular use to 
wreak her temper on, whenever she was in ill- 
humour. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 159 

One time I conjectured that, as Fortune is the 
most capricious jade ever known, she may have 
taken, not a fit of remorse, but a paroxysm of 
whim, to raise the poor devil out of the mire where 
he had so often, and so conveniently, served her as 
a stepping-stone, and given him the most glorious 
boon she ever had in her gift, merely for the mag- 
got's sake, to see how his fool head and his fool 
heart will bear it. 

At other times, I was vain enough to think that 
Nature, who has a great deal to say with Fortune, 
had given the coquettish goddess some such hint as 
— " Here is a paragon of female excellence, whose 
equal, in all my former compositions, I never was 
lucky enough to hit on, and despair of ever doing 
so again : you have cast her rather in the shades of 
life. There is a certain poet of my making : among 
your frolics, it would not be amiss to attach him to 
this masterpiece of my hand, to give her that im- 
mortality among mankind, w4iich no w^oman of any 
age ever more deserved, and which few^ rhymesters 
of this age are better able to confer." 

Evening, JVine o'clock. 

I am here — absolutely unfit to finish my letter 



160 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

— ^^pretty hearty, after a bowl which has been con- 
stantly plied since dinner till this moment. I have 
been with Mr. Schetki the musician, and he has set 
the song* finely. I have no distinct ideas of any 
thing, but that I have drunk your health twice to- 
night, and that you are all my soul holds dear in 
this world. Sylvander. 

* TO CLARINDA. 

" Clarinda, mistress of my soul, 
The measured time is run ! 
The wretch beneath the dreary pole 
So marks his latest sun. 

To what dark cave of frozen night 
Shall poor Sylvander hie, 
Deprived of thee, his life and light — 
Tlie sun of all his joy .^ 

We part — but by those precious drops, 
That fill thy lovely eyes ! 
No other light shall guide my steps, 
Till thy bright beams arise. 

She, the fair sun of all her sex, 
Has blest my glorious day ; 
And shall a glimmering planet fix 
My worship to its ray ?" 



CLAPJNDA TO SYLVANDER. 161 



LETTER XXVII. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Thursday Forenoon^ [January 24.] 

Sylvander, the moment I waked this morning, I 
received a summons from Conscience to appear at 
the Bar of Reason. While I trembled before this 
sacred throne, I beheld a succession of figures pass 
before me in awful brightness ! Religion, clad in a 
robe of light, stalked majestically along, her hair 
dishevelled, and in her hand the Scriptures of Truth, 
held open at these words — " If you love me, keep 
my commandments." Reputation followed : her 
eyes darted indignation, while she waved a beautiful 
wreath of laurel, intermixed with flowers, gathered 
by Modesty in the Bower of Peace. Consideration 
held her bright mirror close to my eyes, and made 
me start at my own image ! Love alone appeared 
as counsel in my behalf. She was adorned with a 
veil, borrowed from Friendship, which hid her de- 
fects, and set off her beauties to advantage. She 
had no plea to offer, but that of being the sister of 



162 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Friendship, and the offspring of Charity. But 
Reason refused to listen to her defence, because she 
brought no certificate from the Temple of Hymen ! 
While I trembled before her, Reason addressed me 
in the following manner : — " Return to my paths, 
which alone are peace ; shut your heart against the 
fascinating intrusion of the passions ; take Consider- 
ation for your guide, and you will soon arrive at the 
Bower of Tranquillity." • 

Sylvander, to drop my metaphor, I am neither 
■well nor happy to-day : my heart reproaches me 
for last night. If you wish Clarinda to regain her 
peace, determine against every thing but what the 
strictest delicacy w^arrants. 

I do not blame you, but myself. I must not see 
you on Saturday, unless 1 find I can depend on my- 
self acting otherwise. Delicacy, you know, it was 
which won me to you at once : take care you do 
not loosen the dearest, most sacred tie that unites 
us ! Remember, Clarinda's present and eternal 
happiness depends upon her adherence to Virtue. 
Happy Sylvander ! that can be attached to Heaven 
and Clarinda together. Alas ! I feel I cannot serve 
two masters. God pity me ! ! 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 163 

Thursday J^ight. 

Why have I not heard from you, Sylvander 1 
Every thing in nature seems tinged with gloom to- 
day. Ah! Sylvander— 

" The heart's ay the part ay 
That makes us right or vvrang !" 

How forcibly have these lines recurred to my 
thoughts ! Did I not tell you what a wretch love 
rendered me ? Affection to the strongest height, I 
am capable of, to a man of my Sylvander's merit — 
if it did not lead me into weakness and follies my 
heart utterly condemns. I am convinced, without 
the approbation of Heaven and my own mind, exist- 
ence would be to me a heavy curse. Sylvander, 
why do not your Clarinda's repeated levities cure the 
too passionate fondness you express for her ? Per- 
haps it has a little removed esteem. But I dare not 
touch this string — it w^ould fill up the cup of my 
present misery. Oh, Sylvander, may the friendship 
of that God you and I have too much neglected to 
secure, be henceforth our chief study and delight. I 
cannot live deprived of the consciousness of His 
favour. I feel something of this awful state all this 



164 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

day. Nay, while I approached God with ray lips, 
my heart was not fully there. 

Mr. Locke's posthumous letter ought to be written 
in letters of gold. What heartfelt joy does the con- 
sciousness of having done w^ell in any one instance 
confer ; and what agony the reverse ! Do not be 
displeased when I tell you I wish our parting was 
over. At a distance we shall retain the same heart- 
felt affection and interestedness in each other's con- 
cerns ; — but absence will mellow and restrain those 
violent heart-agitations which, if continued much 
longer, w^ould unhinge my very soul, and render me 
unlit for the duties of life. You and I are capable 
of that ardency of love, for which the wnde creation 
cannot afford an adequate object. Let us seek to 
repose it in the bosom of our God. Let us next 
give a place to those dearest on earth — the tender 
charities of parent, sister, child ! I bid you good 
night wdth this short prayer of Thomson's — 

" Father of Light and Life, thou good Supreme ! 
Oh teach us what is good — teach us Thyself! 
Save us from Folly, Vanity, and Vice," &c. 

Your letter — I should have liked had it contained 
a little of the last one's seriousness. Bless me ! — 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 165 

You must not flatter so ; but it's in a '^ merry mood," 
and I make allowances. Part of some of your en- 
comiums, I know I deserve ; but you are far out 
■when you enumerate " streno;th of mind " amongr 
them. I have not even an ordinary share of it — 
every passion does what it will wnth me ; and all 
my life, I have been guided by the impulse of the 
moment — unsteady, and weak ! I thank you for the 
letter, though it sticket my prayer. Why did you 
tell me you drank away Reason, " that Heaven- 
lighted lamp in man ?" When Sylvander utters a 
calm, sober sentiment, he is never half so charming. 
I have read several of these in your last letter with 
vast pleasure. Good night ! 

Friday Morning. 

My servant (who is a good soul) will deliver you 
this. She is going down to Leith, and will return 
about two or three o'clock. I have ordered her to 
call then, in case you have aught to say to Clarinda 
to-day. I am better of that sickness at my heart I 
had yesterday; but there's a sting remains, which 
will not be removed till I am at peace with Heaven 
and myself. Another interview, spent as we ought. 



166 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

will help to procure this. A day when the sun shines 
gloriously, always makes me devout ! I hope 'tis 
an earnest (to-day) of being soon restored to the 
" light of His countenance," who is the source of 
love and standard of perfection. Adieu ! 

Clarinda. 



LETTER XXVIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[January 25.] 

Clarinda, my life, you have wounded my soul. 
Can I think of your being unhappy, even though it 
be not described in your pathetic elegance of lan- 
guage, without being miserable ? Clarinda, can 
I bear to be told from you that " you will not see 
me to-morrow night — that you wish the hour of 
parting were come !" Do not let us impose on our- 
selves by sounds. If, in the moment of fond endear- 
ment and tender dalliance, I perhaps trespassed 
against the letter of Decorum's law, I appeal, even 
to you, whether I ever sinned, in the very least de- 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 167 

gree, against the spirU of her strictest statute ? But 
why, ray love, talk to me in such strong terms : 
every word of which cuts me to the very soul 1 You 
know a hint, the slightest signification of your wish, 
is to me a sacred command. 

Be reconciled, my angel, to your God, yourself, 
and me ; and I pledge you Sylvander's honour — an 
oath, I dare say, you will trust without reserve, that 
you shall never more have reason to complain of his 
conduct. Now, my love, do not wound our next 
meeting with any averted looks or restrained caresses. 
I have marked the line of conduct — a line, I know, 
exactly to your taste — and w^hich I will inviolably 
keep ; but do not you show the least inclination to 
make boundaries. Seeming distrust, w^here you 
know you may confide, is a cruel sin against sensi- 
bility. 

'^ Delicacy, you know, it was which won me to 
you at once : take care you do not loosen the dear- 
est, most sacred tie that unites us." Clarinda, I 
would not have stung your soul — I would not have 
bruised your spirit, as that harsh crucifying " Take 
care" did mine ; no, not to have gained heaven ! 
Let me again appeal to your dear self, if Sylvander, 



168 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

even when he seemingly half transgressed the laws 
of decorurn, if he did not show more chastised, 
trembling, faltering delicacy, than the many of the 
world do in keeping these laws ? 

Oh Love and Sensibility, ye have conspired 
against my Peace ! I love to madness, and I feel to 
torture ! Clarinda, how can I forgive myself, that 
I have ever touched a single chord in your bosom 
with pain ! would I do it willingly ? Would any 
consideration, any gratification, make me do so 7 
Oh, did you love like me, you would not, you could 
not, deny or put off a meeting with the man who 
adores you ; — who would die a thousand deaths be- 
fore he would injure you ; and who must soon bid 
you a long farewell ! 

I had proposed bringing my bosom friend, Mr. 
Ainslie, to-morrow evening, at his strong request, 
to see you ; as he has only time to stay with us 
about ten minutes, for an engagement. But I shall 
hear from you : this afternoon, for mercy's sake ! — 
for, till I hear from you, I am wretched. O Cla- 
rinda, the tie that binds me to thee is intwisted, 
incorporated with my dearest threads of hfe ! 

Sylvander. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 169 

LETTER XXIX. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[January 26th.'] 

I was on the way, my Love, to meet you, (I 
never do things by halves,) when I got your card. 
Mr. AinsUe goes out of town to-morrow morning, 
to see a brother of his who is newly arrived from 
France. I am determined that he and I shall call 
on you together. So, look you, lest I should never 
see to-morrow, we will call on you to-night. Mary 
and you may put off tea till about seven, at which 
time, in the Galloway phrase, " an' the beast be to 
the fore, and the branks bide hale," expect the hum- 
blest of your humble servants, and his dearest 
friend. We only propose staying half an hour — 
"for aught we ken." I could suffer the lash of 
misery eleven months in the year, were the twelfth 
to be cotnposed of hours like yester-night. You are 
the soul of my enjoyment ; all else is of the stuff of 
stocks and stones. 

Sylvander. 



170 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 



LETTER XXX. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Sunday Noon, Jan- ^Ith. 

I have almost given up the Excise idea. I have 

been just now to wait on a great person, Miss 's 

friend, . Why will great people not only 

deafen us with the din of their equipage, and dazzle 
us with their fastidious pomp, but they must also be 
very dictatorially wise? I have been questioned 
like a child about my matters, and blamed and 
schooled for my Inscription on Stirling window. 
Come, Clarinda ! — " Come, curse me, Jacob ; come, 
defy me, Israel !" 

Sunday Night. 

I have been with Miss Nimmo. She is, indeed, 
" a good soul," as my Clarinda finely says. She 
has reconciled me, in a good measure, to the world 
with her friendly prattle. 

Schetki has sent me the song, set to a fine air of 
his composing. I have called the song Clarinda :* 

* See page 160. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 171 

I have carried it about in my pocket and thumbed 
it over all day. 

Monday Morning. 
If my prayers have any weight in heaven, this 
morning looks in on you and finds you in the arras 
of peace, except where it is charmingly interrupted 
by the ardours of devotion. I find so much serenity 
of mind, so much positive pleasure, so much fearless 
daring toward the world, when I warm in devotion, 
or feel the glorious sensation — a consciousness of 
Almighty friendship — that I am sure I shall soon be 
an honest enthusiast. 

" How are thy servants blest, O Lord ! 
How sure is their defence ! 
Eternal wisdom is their guide, 
Their help, Omnipotence." 

I am, dear Madam, yours, 

Sylvander. 



I7i CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

LETTER XXXI. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Sunday, Eight Evening, [27 th.} 

Sylvander, when I think of you as ray dearest 
and most attached friend, I am highly pleased; 
but when you come across my mind as my lover, 
something within gives a sting resembling that of 
guilt. Tell me why is this ? It must be from the 
idea that I am another's. What ! another's wife. 
Oh cruel Fate! I am, indeed, bound in an iron 
chain. Forgive me, if this should give you pain. 
You know I must (I told you I must) tell you my 
genuine feelings, or be silent. Last night we were 
happy beyond what the bulk of mankind can con- 
ceive. Perhaps the " line " you had marked was a 
little infringed, — it was really ; blit, though I dis- 
approve, I have not been unhappy about it. I am 
convinced no less of your discernment, than of your 
wish to make your Clarinda happy. I know you 
sincere, when you profess horror at the idea of what 
would render her miserable for ever. Yet we must 



CLAEINDA TO SYLVANDER. 173 

guard against going to the verge of danger. Ah ! 
my friend, much need had we to " watch and 
pray !" May those benevolent spirits, whose office 
it is to save the fall of Virtue struggling on the 
brink of Vice, be ever present to protect and guide 
us in right paths ! 

I had an hour's conversation to-day with my 
worthy friend Mr. Kemp.* You'll attribute, per- 
haps, to this, the above sentiments. 'Tis true, 
there's not one on earth has so much influence on 
me, except — Sylvander; partly it has forced me 
" to feel along the Mental Intelligence." How- 
ever, I've broke the ice. I confessed I had con- 
ceived a tender impression of late — that it was 
mutual, and that I had wished to unbosom myself 
to him, (as I always did,) particularly to ask if he 
thought I should, or not, mention it to my friend ? 
I saw he felt for me, (for I was in tears ;) but he 
bewailed that I had given my heart while in my 
present state of bondage; wished I had made it 

* The Reverend John Kemp, minister of the Tolbooth 
Church, Edinburgh ; a man of acknowledged acquirements 
and ability, and of high standing in society. He twice inter- 
married with the nobility. 



174 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

friendship only ; in short, talked to me in the style 
of a tender parent, anxious for ray happiness. He 
disapproves altogether of my saying a syllable of 
the matter to my friend, — says it could only make 
him uneasy ; and that I am in no way bound to do 
it by any one tie. This has eased me of a load 
which has lain upon my mind ever since our inti- 
macy. Sylvander, I wish you and Mr. Kemp were 
acquainted, — such worth and sensibility ! If you 
had his piety and sobriety of manners, united to the 
shining abilities you possess, you'd be " a faultless 
monster which the w^orld ne'er saw." He, too, has 
great talents. His imagination is rich — his feelings 
delicate — his discernment acute ; yet there are shades 
in his, as in all characters : but these it would ill 
become Clarinda to point out. Alas ! I know too 
many blots in my own. 

Sylvander, I believe nothing were a more im- 
practicable task than to make you feel a little of 
genuine gospel humility. Believe me, I wish not 
to see you deprived of that noble fire of an exalted 
mind which you eminently possess. Yet a sense of 
your faults — a feeling sense of them ! — were de- 
voutly to be wished. Tell me, did you ever, or 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 175 

how oft have you smote on your breast, and cried, 
*' God be merciful to me a sinner" ? I fancy, once 
or twice, when suffering from the effects of your 
errors. Pardon me if I be hurting your " intrinsic 
dignity ;" it need not — even " divine Clarinda" has 
been in this mortal predicament. 

Pray, what does Mr. Ainslie think of her ? Was 
he not astonished to find her merely human ? Three 
weeks ago, I suppose you would have made him 
walk into her presence unshod : but one must bury 
even divinities when they discover symptoms of 
mortality ! — (Let these be interred in Sylvander's 
bosom.) 

My dearest friend, there are two wishes upper- 
most in my heart : to see you think alike with 
Clarinda on religion, and settled in some creditable 
line of business. The warm interest I take in both 
these, is, perhaps, the best proof of the sincerity of 
my friendship — as well as earnest of its duration. 
As to the first, I devolve it over into the hands of 
the Omniscient ! May he raise up friends who will 
effectuate the other ! While I breathe these fervent 
wishes, think not any thing but pure disinterested 
regard prompts them. They are fond but chimeri- 



176 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

cal ideas. They are never indulged but in the hour 
of tender endearment, when 

" Innocence 



Looked gaily smiling on, while rosy Pleasure 
Hid young Desire amid her flowery wreath, 
And poured her cup luxuriant, mantling high 
The sparkling. Heavenly vintage — Love and Bliss." 

'Tis past ten — and I please myself with thinking 
Sylvander will be about to retire, and write to Cla- 
rinda. I fancy you'll find this stupid enough ; but I 
can't be always bright — the sun will be sometimes 
under a cloud. Sylvander, I wish our kind feelings 
were more moderate ; why set one's heart upon im- 
possibilities ? Try me merely as your friend, (alas, 
all I ought to be.) Believe me, you'll find me most 
rational. If you'd caress the " mental intelligence " 
as you do the corporeal frame, indeed, Sylvander, 
you'd make me a philosopher. I see you fidgeting 
at this violently, blasting rationality. I have a 
headache which brings home these things to the 
mind. To-morrow I'll hear from you, I hope. This 
is Sunday, and not a word on our favourite subject. 
O fy, " divine Clarinda." I intend giving you my 
idea of Heaven in opposition to your heathenish de- 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 177 

scription, (which, by the by, was elegantly drawn.) 
Mine shall be founded on Reason, and supported by 
Scripture ; but it's too late, my head aches, but my 
heart is affectionately yours. 

Monday Morning. 

I am almost not sorry at the Excise affair misgiv- 
ing. You w^ill be better out of Edinburgh — it is full 
of temptation to one of your social turn. 

Providence (if you be wise in future) will order 
something better for you. I am half glad you were 
schooled about the Inscription ; 'twill be a lesson, I 
hope, in future. Clarinda would have lectured you 
on it before, " if she dared." Miss Nimmo is a wo- 
man after my own heart. You are reconciled to the 
world by her " friendly prattle !" How can you 
talk so diminutively of the conversation of a woman 
of solid sense ? what will you say of Clarinda's chit 
chat ! I suppose you would give it a still more in- 
significant term if you dared ; but it is mixed wdth 
something that makes it bearable, were it even 
weaker thanit is. Miss Nimmo is right in both her 
conjectures. Ah, Sylvander ! my peace must suffer 
— yours cannot. You think, in loving Clarinda, 



178 CLARINPA TO SYLVANDER. 

you are doing right ; all Sjlvander's eloquence can- 
not convince me that it is so ! If I were but at 
liberty — Oh how I would indulge in all the luxury 
of innocent love ! It is, I fear, too late to talk in 

's strain, after indulging you and myself so much ; 

it would Sylvander shelter his love in Friendship's 
allowed garb, Clarinda would be far happier. 

To-morrow, didst thou say ? The time is short 
now — is it not too frequent ? do not sweetest dain- 
ties cloy soonest ? Take your chance — come half- 
past eight. If any thing particular occur to render 
it improper to-morrow, I'll send you w^ord, and name 

another evening. Mr. is to call to-night, I 

believe. He, too, trembles for my peace. Two 
such worthies to be interested about my foolish lady- 
ship ! The Apostle Paul, with all his rhetoric, could 
not reconcile me to the great (little souls) when I 
think of them and Sylvander together ; but I pity 
them. 

" If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat, 
With any wish so mean, as to be great, 
Continue, Heaven, far from me to remove 
The humble blessings of that life I love." 

Till we meet, my dear Sylvander, adieu ! 

Clarinda. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINUA 179 



LETTER XXXII. 



SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Sunday Mornings \27th January.] 

I have just been before the throne of my God, 
Clarinda. According to my association of ideas, my 
sentiments of love and friendship, I next devote my- 
self to you. Yesternight I was happy — happiness 
" that the world cannot give." I kindle at the re- 
collection ; but it is a flame where Innocence looks 
smiling on, and Honour stands by, a sacred guard. 
Your heart, your fondest wishes, your dearest 
thoughts, these are yours to bestow : your person is 
unapproachable, by the laws of your country ; and 
he loves not as I do who would make you miserable. 

You are an angel, Clarinda ; you are surely no 
mortal that " the earth owns." To kiss your hand, 
to live on your smile, is to me far more exquisite 
bliss, than any the dearest favours that the fairest of 
the sex, yourself excepted, can bestow. 

Sunday Evening. 

You are the constant companion of my thoughts. 



180 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

How wretched is the condition of one who is haunted 
with conscious guilt, and trembling under the idea 
of dreaded vengeance ! And what a placid calm, 
what a charming secret enjoyment is given to one's 
bosom by the kind feelings of friendship, and the 
fond throes of love ! Out upon the tempest of An- 
ger, the acrimonious gall of fretful Impatience, the 
sullen frost of lowering Resentment, or the corroding 
poison of withered Envy ! They eat up the immor- 
tal part of man ! If they spent their fury only on 
the unfortunate objects of them, it would be some- 
thing in their favour ; but these miserable passions, 
like traitor Iscariot, betray their Lord and Master. 

Thou Almighty Author of peace, and goodness, 
and love ! do Thou give me the social heart that 
kindly tastes of every man's cup ! Is it a draught of 
joy ? — w^arm and open my heart to share it with 
cordial, unenvying rejoicing ! Is it the bitter potion 
of sorrow ? — melt my heart with sincerely sympa- 
thetic woe ! Above all, do Thou give me the manly 
mind, that resolutely exemplifies in life and manners 
those sentiments w^hich I would wish to be thought 
to possess ! The friend of my soul — there may I 
never deviate from the firmest fidelity and most ac- 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 181 

tive kindness ! Clarinda, the dear object of my fond- 
est love ; there, may the most sacred, inviolate hon- 
our, the most faithful, kindling constancy, ever watch 
and animate my every thought and imagination ! 

Did you ever meet the following lines spoken of 
Religion, your darling topic? — ■ 

'Tis this^ my friend, that streaks our morning bright ! 

'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night ! 

When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few ; 

When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue ; 

'Tis this that wards the blow or stills the smart, 

Disarms affliction, or repels its dart; 

Within the breast bids purest rapture rise. 

Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudless skies. 

I met with these verses very early in life, and 
was so delighted with them that I have them by me, 
copied at school. 

Good night, and sound rest. 

My dearest Clarinda. 

Sylvander. 



182 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Wednesday Evening, JVine, [Jan. 30.] 

There is not a sentiment in your last dear letter, 
but must meet the approbation of every worthy dis- 
cerning mind — except one — "that my heart, my 
fondest wishes," are mine to bestow. True, they 
are not, they cannot be placed upon him who ought 
to have had them, but whose conduct (I dare not 
say more against him) has justly forfeited them. 
But is it not too near an infringement of the sacred 
obligations of marriage to bestow one's heart, wishes, 
and thoughts upon another ? Something in my soul 
whispers that it approaches criminality. I obey the 
voice. Let me cast every kind feeling into the al- 
lowed bond of Friendship. If 'tis accompanied with 
a shadow of a softer feeling, it shall be poured into 
the bosom of a merciful God ! If a confession of my 
warmest, tenderest friendship does not satisfy you, 
duty forbids Clarinda should do more ! Sylvander, 
I never expect to be happy here below ! Why was 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. l^$ 

I formed so susceptible of emotions I dare not in- 
dulge ? Never were there two hearts formed so 
exactly alike as ours ! No wonder our friendship is 
heightened by the " sympathetic glow." In read- 
ing your Life, I find the very first poems that hit 
your fancy, were those that first engaged mine. 
While almost a child, the hymn you mentioned, and 
another of Addison's, " When all thy mercies," &c., 
were my chief favourites. They are much so to this 
hour ; and I make my boys repeat them every Sab- 
bath day. When about fifteen, I took a great fond- 
ness for Pope's " Messiah," which I still reckon one 
of the sublimest pieces I ever met with. 

Sylvander, I believe our friendship will be last- 
ing ; its basis has been virtue, similarity of tastes, 
feelings, and sentiments. Alas ! I shudder at the 
idea of an hundred miles' distance. You'll hardly 
write me once a month, and other objects will weak- 
en your affection for Clarinda. Yet I cannot believe 
so. — Oh, let the scenes of Nature remind you of 
Clarinda ! In winter, remember the dark shades of 
her fate ; in summer, the warmth, the cordial 
warmth, of her friendship ; in autumn, her glowing 
wishes to bestow plenty on all ; and let spring ani- 



184 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

mate you with hopes, that your friend may yet live 
to surmount the wintry blasts of life, and revive to 
taste a spring time of happiness ! At all events, 
Sylvander, the storms of life will quickly pass, and 
" one unbounded spring encircle all." There, Syl- 
vander, I trust we'll meet. Love, there, is not a 
crime. I charge you to meet me there — Oh, God ! 

1 must lay down my pen. 1 repent, almost, 

flattering your writing talents so much : I can see 
you know all the merit you possess. The allusion of 
the key is true — therefore I won't recant it ; but I 
rather was too humble about my own letters. I 
have met with several who wTote worse than myself, 
and few, of my own sex, better ; so I don't give you 
great credit for being fashed with them. 

Sylvander, I have things with different friends I 
can't tell to another, yet am not hurt ; but I told you 
of that particular friend : he was, for near four 
years, the one I confided in. He is very w^orthy, and 
answers your description in the " Epistle to J. S." 
exactly. When I had hardly a friend to care for 
me in Edinburgh, he befriended me. I saw, too 
soon, 'twas with him a warmer feeling : perhaps a 
little infection was the natural effect. I told you the 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 185 

circumstances which helped to eradicate the tender 
impression in me; but I perceive (though he never 
tells me so) — I see it in every instance — his prepos- 
session still remains. I esteem him as a faithful 
friend ; but I can never feel more for him. I fear 
he's not convinced of that. He sees no man with 
me half so often as himself; and thinks I surely am 
at least partial to no other. I cannot bear to de- 
ceive one in so tender a point, and am hurt at his 
harbouring an attachment I never can return. I 
have thoughts of owning my intimacy with Sylvan- 
der ; but a thousand things forbid it. I should be 
tortured with Jealousy, that " green-eyed monster ;" 
and, besides, I fear 'twould wound his peace. 'Tis 
a delicate affair. I wish your judgment on it. O, 
Sylvander, I cannot bear to give pain to any crea- 
ture, far less to one who pays me the attention of a 
brother ! 

I never met with a man congenial, perfectly con- 
genial to myself but one — ask no questions. Is Friday 
to be the last night ? I wish, Sylvander, you'd steal 
away — I cannot bear farewell ! I can hardly relish 
the idea of meeting — for the idea ! but we will meet 



186 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

again, at least in Heaven, I hope. Sylvander, when 
I survey myself, my returning weaknesses, I am 
consoled that my hopes, my immortal hopes, are 
founded in the complete righteousness of a compas- 
sionate Saviour. " In all our afflictions, He is afflict- 
ed, and the angel of His presence guards us." 

I am charmed with the Lines on Religion, and 
with you for relishing them. I only wish the world 
saw you, as you appear in your letters to me. Why 
did you send forth to them the " Holy Fair," &c. ? 
Had Clarinda known you, she would have held you 
in her arms till she had your promise to suppress 
them. Do not publish the " Moor Hen." Do not, 
for your sake, and for mine. I wish you vastly to 
hear my valued friend, Mr. Kemp. Come to hear 
him on Sunday afternoon. 'Tis the first favour I 
have asked you : I expect you'll not refuse me. 
You'll easily get a seat. Your favourite, Mr. Gould, 
I admired much. His composition is elegant in- 
deed! — but 'tis like beholding a beautiful super- 
structure built on a sandy foundation : 'tis fine to 
look upon ; but one dares not abide in it w^ith safet3^ 
Mr. Kemp's language is very good, — perhaps not 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 187 

such studied periods as Mr. G.'s ; but he is far more 
animated. He is pathetic in a degree that touches 
one's soul ! and then, 'tis all built upon a rock. 

I could chide you for the Parting Song. It 
wrings my heart. "You may reca' " — by being 
wise in future, — " your friend, as yet " — I will be 
your friend forever ! Good night ! God bless you ! 
prays 

Clarinda. 

Thursday Noon. 

I shall go to-morrow forenoon to Miers* alone : 
'tis quite a usual thing I hear. Mary is not in 
town ; and I don't care to ask Miss Nimmo, or 
any body else. What size do you want it about ? 
Sylvander, if you wish my peace, let Friendship 
be the word between us : I tremble at more " Talk 
not of Love," &c. To-morrow I'll expect you. 
Adieu ! 

Clarinda. 

* Miers was a miniature painter of that time. A profile of 
Burns by him appears in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of 
the Poet's Works. 



188 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

LETTER XXXIV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Thursday JVighty [January 31.] 

I cannot be easy, my Clarinda, while any senti- 
ment respecting me in your bosom gives you pain. 
If there is no man on earth to whom your heart and 
affections are justly clue, it may savour of impru- 
dence, but never of criminality, to bestow that heart 
and those affections where you please. The God of 
love meant and made those delicious attachments to 
be bestowed on somebody ; and even all the impru- 
dence lies in bestowing them on an unworthy object. 
If this reasoning is conclusive, as it certainly is, I 
must be allowed to " talk of Love." 

It is, perhaps, rather wrong to speak highly to a 
friend of his letter ; it is apt to lay one under a little 
restraint in their future letters, and restraint is the 
death of a friendly epistle ; but there is one passage 
in your last charming letter — Thomson nor Shenstone 
never exceeded it, nor often came up to it. I shall 
certainly steal it, and set it in some future poetic 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 189 

production, and get imnaortal fame by it. 'Tis when 
you bid the scenes of nature remind me of Clarinda. 
Can I forget you, Clarinda? I would detest myself 
as a tasteless, unfeeling, insipid, infamous blockhead ! 
I have loved women of ordinary merit, whom I could 
have loved for ever. You are the first, the only unex- 
ceptionable individual of the beauteous sex that I 
ever met with ; and never w^oman more entirely 
possessed my soul. I know myself, and how far I 
can depend on passions, well. It has been my pecu- 
liar study. 

I thank you for going to Miers. Urge him, for 
necessity calls, to have it done by the middle of next 
week: Wednesday the latest day. I want it for a 
breast>pin, to wear next my heart. I propose to 
keep sacred set times, to wander in the woods and 
wilds for meditation on you. Then, and only then, 
your lovely image shall be produced to the day, 
with a reverence akin to devotion. * 

TV* T? W TV* T^^ -Tr 

* * * * * # 

To-morrow night shall not be the last. Good 

night ! I am perfectly stupid, as I supped late 

yesternight. 

Sylvander. 
9* 



Q CI^ARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

LETTER XXXV. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Saturday Evening, IFebruary 2d.'\ 

I am wishing, Sylvander, for the power of look- 
ing into your heart. It would be but fair — for you 
have the key of mine. You are possessed of acute 
discernment. I am not deficient either in that re° 
spect. Last night must have shown you Clarinda 
not "divine" — but as she really is. I can't recol- 
lect some things I said without a degree of pain. 
Nature has been kind to me in several respects ; but 
one essential she has denied me entirely : it is that 
instantaneous perception of fit and unfit, which is so 
useful in the conduct of life. No one can discrimi- 
nate more accurately afterwards than Clarinda. But, 
when her heart is expanded by the influence of 
kindness, she loses all command of it, and often suf- 
fers severely in the recollection of her unguarded- 
ness. You must have perceived this; but, at any 
rate, I wish you to know me, as " I really am." I 
would have given much for society to-day ; for I 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 191 

can't bear my own : but no human being has come 
near me. Well as I like you, Sylvander, I would 
rather lose your love, than your esteem : the first I 
ought not to wish; the other I shall ever endeavour 
to maintain. But no more of this : you prohibit it, 
and I obey. 

For many years have I sought for a male friend, 
endowed with sentiments like yours ; one who could 
love me with tenderness, yet unmixed with selfish- 
ness ; who could be my friend, companion, protect- 
or, and who would die sooner than injure me. I 
sought — but I sought in vain ! Heaven has, I hope, 
sent me this blessing in my Sylvander ! Whatever 
weaknesses may cleave to Clarinda, her heart is not 
to blame : whatever it may have been by nature, it 
is unsullied by art. If she dare dispose of it — last 
night can leave you at no loss to guess the man : 

Then, dear Sylvander, use it weel, 
An' row it in your bosom's biel ; 
Ye'll find it aye baith kind and leal, 

An' fou o' glee ; 
It wad nae wrang the vera deil, — 

Ah, far less thee ! 

How do you like this parody on a passage of my 



192 CLARINDA TO SYLVAJJDER. 

favourite poet ? — it is extempore — from the heart. I 
am to inclose the first fruits of my muse, " To a 
Blackbird."* It has no poetic merit ; but it be- 
speaks a sweet feminine mind — such a one as I wish 
mine to be ; but my vivacity deprives me of that 
softness which is, in my opinion, the first female or- 
nament. It was written to soothe an aching heart. 
I then laboured under a cruel anguish of soul, which 
I cannot tell you of. If I ever take a walk to the 

Temple of H , I'll disclose it ; but you and I 

(were it even possible) would " fall out by the way." 
The lines on the Soldier were occasioned by reading 
a book entitled the " Sorrows of the Heart.'' Miss 
Nimmo was pleased with them, and sent them to 
the gentleman. They are not poetry, but they speak 
what I felt at a survey of so much filial tenderness. 
I agree with you in liking quotations. If they 
are apt, they often give one's ideas more pleasantly 
than our own language can at all times. 1 am stu- 
pid to night. I have a soreness at my heart. I 
conclude, therefore, with a verse of Goldsmith, 
which, of late, has become an immense favourite of 
mine : — 

* See Appendix. 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 193 

In Nature's simplest habit clad, 
No wealth nor power had he ; 

Genius and worth were all he had, 
But these were all to me. 

Good night, " my dear Sylvander ;" say this (like 

Werter) to yourself. 

Your Clarinda. 

Sunday Evening. 

I would have given much, Sylvander, that you 
had heard Mr. Kemp this afternoon. You would 
have heard my principles, and the foundation of all 
ray immortal hopes, elegantly delivered. " Let me 
live the life of the righteous, and my latter end be 
like his," was the text. Who are the righteous ? 
"Those," says Sylvander, " whose minds are actua- 
ted and governed by purity, truth, and charity." 
But where does such a mind exist? It must be 
where the " soul is made perfect," for I know none 
such on earth. " The righteous," then, must mean 
those who believe in Christ, and rely on his perfect 
righteousness for their salvation. " Everlasting" life, 
as you observe, it is in the power of all to embrace ; 
and this is eternal life, to " believe in Him whom 
God hath sent." Purity, truth, and charity, will flow 



194 CLARLNDA TO SYLVANDER. 

from this belief, as naturally as the stream from the 
fountain. These are, indeed, the only evidences we 
can have of the reality of our faith ; and they must 
be produced in a degree ere we can be fit for the 
enjoyment of Heaven. But where is the man who 
dare plead these before " Infinite Holiness ?" Will 
Inflexible Justice pardon our thousand violations of 
his laws? Will our imperfect repentance and 
amendments atone for past guilt ? or, will we pre- 
sume to present our best services (spotted as they 
are) as worthy of acceptance before Unerring Recti- 
tude ? I am astonished how any intelligent mind, 
blessed with a divine revelation, can pause a mo- 
ment on the subject. " Enter not into judgment 
with me, Lord ! in thy sight no flesh can be justi- 
fied!" This must be the result of every candid 
mind, upon surveying its own deserts. If God had 
not been pleased to reveal his own Son, as our all- 
sufficient Saviour, what could we have done but 
cried for mercy, without any sure hope of obtaining 
it ? But when we have him clearly announced as 
our surety, our guide, our blessed advocate with the 
Father, who, in their senses, ought to hesitate, in 
putting their souls into the hands of this glorious 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 195 

" Prince of Peace 7" Without this, we may admire 
the Creator in his works, but we can never approach 
him with the confidential tenderness of children. " I 
will arise, and go to my Father." This is the 
blessed language of every one who believes and 
trusts in Jesus. Oh, Sylvander, who would go on 
fighting with themselves, resolving and re-resolving, 
while they can thus fly to their Father's house ? 
But, alas ! it is not till we tire of these husks of our 
own, that we recollect that there, there is bread 
enough, and to spare. Whenever the wish is sin- 
cerely formed in our hearts, our heavenly Father 
will have compassion upon us—" though a great 
way off." This is the " religion of the bosom." I 
BELIEVE that there will be many of every sect, 
nation, and people, who will " stand before the 
throne ;" but I believe that it will be the effect of 
Christ's atonement, conveyed to them by ways too 
complicated for our finite minds to comprehend. But 
why should we, who know " the way, the truth, and 
the life," deprive ourselves of the comfort it is fitted 
to yield ? Let my earnest wish for your eternal, as 
well as temporal happiness, excuse the warmth with 
which I have unfolded what has been my own fixed 



196 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

point of rest. I want no controversy — I hate it ; let 
our only strivings be, who shall be the most constant 
and attached friend, — which of us shall render our 
conduct most approved to the other. I am well 
aware how vain it were (vain in every sense of the 
expression) to hope to sway a mind so intelligent as 
yours, by any arguments I could devise. May that 
God, who spoke worlds into existence, open your 
eyes to see " the truth as it is in Jesus !" Forgive 
me, Sylvander, if I've been tedious upon my favour- 
ite theme. You know who it was, who could not 
stop when his divinity came across him. Even 
there you see we are congenial. 

I'll tell you a pretty apt quotation I made to-day, 
warm from my heart. I met the Judges in the 
morning, as I went into the Parliament Square, 
among whom was Lord Dreghorn,* in his new robes 
of purple. He is my mother's cousin-german, the 

* Lord Dreghorn was the son of Colin Maclaurin, the cele- 
brated mathematician, and after a successful practice at the 
bar, was raised to the Bench, in 17S8. He published several 
works, and died in 1796. Many of the Judges, at that period, 
went in their robes, to the High Church, in Parliament 
Square, 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 197 

greatest real honour he could ever claim ; but used 
me in a manner unfeeling, harsh beyond description, 
at one of the darkest periods of my chequered life. 
I looked steadfastly in his sour face, his eye met 
mine. I was a female, and therefore he stared ; but, 
when he knew who it was, he averted his eyes sud- 
denly. Instantaneously these lines darted into my 
mmd:— .,X>' 

Would you the purple should ^our lipib^adDrn, 
Go wash the conscious blemish vvTth-a tear. 

The man, who enjoys more pleasure in the merce- 
nary embrace of a courtezan, than in relieving the 
unfortunate, is a detestable character, whatever his 
bright talents may be. 

I pity him ! Sylvander, all his fortune could not 
purchase half the luxury of Friday night ! Let us 
be grateful to Heaven, though it has denied us 
wealth and power, for being endued with feelings, 
fitted to yield the most exquisite enjoyments here 
and hereafter ! May I hope you'll read what I have 
urged on religion with attention, Sylvander, when 
Reason resumes her reign ? I've none of these fu- 
ture delusive hopes, which you too vainly express as 



198 SYLVANDEK TO CLARINDA. 

having towards Clarinda. Do not indulge them ; 
my wishes extend to your immortal welfare. Let 
your first care be to please God — for that, which He 
delights in, must be happiness. I must conclude, or 
I'll relapse. I have not a grain of humour to-night 
in my composition; so, lest "charming Clarinda" 
should make you yawn, she'll decently say " good 
night !" I laugh to myself at the recollection of 
your earnest asseverations as to your being anti- 
Platonic ! Want of passions, is not merit : strong 
ones, under the control of reason and religion — let 

these be our glory. 

Once more good night. 

Clarinda. 



LETTER XXXVL 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Saturday Morning, [February 2<Z.] 

There is no time, my Clarinda, w^hen the con- 
scious thrilling chords of Love and Friendship give 
such delight, as in the pensive hours of what our 
favourite Thomson calls " philosophic melancholy." 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 199 

The sportive insects, who bask in the sunshine of 
Prosperity, or the worms, that luxuriant crawl amid 
their ample wealth of earth ; they need no Clarinda 
— they would despise Sylvander, if they dared. 
The family of Misfortune, a numerous group of bro- 
thers and sisters ! — they need a resting-place to 
their souls. Unnoticed, often condemned by the 
world — in some degree, perhaps, condemned by 
themselves — they feel the full enjoyment of ardent 
love, delicate tender endearments, mutual esteem, 
and mutual reliance. 

In this light, I have often admired religion. In 
proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted 
with anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate Deity, 
an Almighty Protector, are doubly dear. 

'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright, 
'Tis this that gilds the horrors of our night. 

I have been this morning taking a peep through, 
as Young finely says, '' the dark postern of time 
long elapsed ;" and you will easily guess 'twas a 
rueful prospect: what a tissue of thoughtlessness, 
weakness, and folly ! My life reminded me of a 
ruined temple : what strength, what proportion in 



200 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

some parts ! — what unsightly gaps, what prostrate 
ruins in others ! I kneeled down before the Father 
of Mercies, and said, " Father, I have sinned 
against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more 
worthy to be called thy son !" I rose eased and 
strengthened. I despise the superstition of a fa- 
natic ; but I love the religion of a man. " The 
future," said I to myself, " is still before me : there 
let me 

On reason build resolve — 
That column of true majesty in man ! 

" I have difficulties many to encounter," said I ; 
" but they are not absolutely insuperable : — and 
where is firmness of mind shown, but in exertion ? 
Mere declamation is bombast rant. Besides, where- 
ever I am, or in whatever situation I may be, 



■'Tis nought to me, 



Since God is ever present, ever felt, 

In the void w^aste as in the city full ; 

And where he vital breathes, there must be joy. 

Saturday JVight, Half after Ten. 

What luxury of bliss I was enjoying this time 
yesternight ! My ever dearest Clarinda, you have 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 201 

stolen away my soul : but you have refined, you 
have exalted it ; you have given it a stronger sense 
of virtue, and a stronger relish for piety. Clarinda, 
first of your sex ! if ever I am the veriest wretch on 
earth to forget you ; if ever your lovely image is 
effaced from my soul. 

May I be lost, no eye to weep my end, 

And find no earth that's base enough to bury me ! 

What trifling silliness is the childish fondness of 
the every-day children of the world ! 'Tis the un- 
meaning toying of the younglings of the fields and 
forests ; but, where Sentiment and Fancy unite 
their sweets, where Taste and Delicacy refine, 
where Wit adds the flavour, and Good Sense gives 
strength and spirit to all ; what a delicious draught 
is the hour of tender endearment ! Beauty and 
Grace in the arms of Truth and Honour, in all the 
luxury of mutual love. 

Clarinda, have you ever seen the picture real- 
ized ? not in all its very richest colouring, but 

Hope, thou nurse of young Desire, 
Fair promiser of Joy 



202 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

Last night, Clarinda, but for one slight shade, 
was the glorious picture — 

Innocence 

Look'd gaily smiling on ; while rosy Pleasure 
Hid young Desire amid her flowery wreath, 
And pour'd her cup luxuriant, mantling high, 
The sparkling, Heavenly vintage — Love and Bliss ! 

Clarinda, when a poet and poetess of Nature's 
making — two of Nature's noblest productions ! — 
when they drink together of the same cup of Love 
and Bliss, attempt not, ye coarser stuff of human 
nature ! profanely to measure enjoyment ye never 
can know. 

Good night, my dear Clarinda! 

Sylvander. 



LETTER XXXVIL 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[ith February, 1788.] 

* * * I am a discontented ghost, a 
perturbed spirit. Clarinda, if ever you forget Syl- 
vander, may you be happy, but he will be miserable. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARLNDA. 203 

0, what a fool I am in love ! — what an extrava- 
gant prodigal of affection ! Why are your sex 
called the tender sex, when I never have met with 
one who can repay rae in passion ? They are either 
not so rich in love as I am, or they are niggards 
where I am lavish. 

Thou, whose I am, and whose are all my 
w^ays! Thou see'st me here, the hapless wreck of 
tides and tempests in my own bosom : do Thou di- 
rect to thyself that ardent love, for which I have so 
often sought a return, in vain, from my fellow-crea- 
tures ! If Thy goodness has yet such a gift in store 
for me, as an equal return of affection from her who. 
Thou knowest, is dearer to me than life, do Thou 
bless and hallow our band of love and friendship ; 
w^atch over us, in all our outgoings and incomings, 
for good; and may the tie that unites our hearts be 
strong and indissoluble as the thread of man's im- 
mortal life ! 

1 am just going to take your Blackbird, the 
sweetest, I am sure, that ever sung, and prune its 
wings a Httle. 

Sylvander. 



204 SYLYANDER TO CLARINDA. 



LETTER XXXVIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[February 5iA.] 

I cannot go out to-day, my dearest loYe, \vithout 
sending you half a line by way of a sin-offering ; 
but, believe me, 'twas the sin of ignorance. Could 
you think that I intended to hurt you by any thing I 
said yesternight ? Nature has been too kind to you 
for your happiness, your delicacy, your sensibility. 
why should such glorious qualifications be the 
fruitful source of wo ! You have " murdered sleep " 
to me last night. I went to bed impressed with an 
idea that you were unhappy ; and every start I 
closed my eyes, busy Fancy painted you in such 
scenes of romantic misery, that I would almost be 
persuaded you are not well this morning. 

"If I unwitting have offended, 

Impute it not," 

" But while we live 

But one short hour, perhaps, between us two 

Let there be peace." 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 205 

If Mary is not gone by the time this reaches you, 
give her my best compliments. She is a charming 
girl, and highly worthy of the noblest love. 

I send you a poem to read till I call on you this 
night, which will be about nine. I wish I could 
procure some potent spell, some fairy charm, that 
would protect from injury, or restore to rest that 
bosom chord, " tremblingly alive all o'er," on which 
hangs your peace of mind. I thought, vainly I fear 
thought, that the devotion of love, love strong as 
even you can feel, love guarded, invulnerably guard- 
ed by all the purity of virtue, and all the pride of 
honour, — I thought such a love might make you 
happy. Shall I be mistaken ? I can no more, for 
hurry. 

Tuesday Morning. 



LETTER XXXIX. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Tliursday, Twelve^ [February 7tk.'] 

I have been giving Mary a convoy ; the day is a 
genial one. Mary is a happy woman to-day. Mrs. 
10 



206 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Cockburn* has seen her " Henry," and admired it 
vastly. She talked of you, told her she saw you, 
and that her lines even met your applause. Sylvan- 
der, I share in the joy of every one ; and am ready 
to " weep with those who weep," as well as " re- 
joice with those who rejoice." I wish all the hu- 
man race well, — my heart throbs with the large 
ambitious wish to see them blest ; yet I seem some- 
times as if born to inflict misery. What a cordial 
evening we had last night ! I only tremble at the 
ardent manner Mary talks of Sylvander! She 
knows where his affections lie, and is quite uncon- 
scious of the eagerness of her expressions. All 
night I could get no sleep for her admiration. I 
like her for it, and am proud of it ; but I know how 
much violent admiration is akin to love. 

I go out to dinner, and mean to leave this, in 
case of one from you to-day. Miss Chalmers's let- 
ters are charming. Why did not such a woman 
secure your heart ? —0 the caprice of human nature, 
to fix on impossibilities. 

* Authoress of the beautiful song to the tune of " The 
Flowers of the Forest," beginning, "I've seen the smiling of 
Fortune beguiling." 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 207 

I am, however, happy you have such valuable 
friends. What a pity that those who will be most 
apt to feel your merit, will be probably among the 
number who have not the power of serving you ! 
Sylvander, I never was ambitious; but of late I have 
wished for wealth, with an ardour unfelt before — to 
be able to say, " Be independent, thou dear friend 
of my heart!" What exquisite joy! Then "your 
head would be lifted up above your enemies." Oh, 
then, what little shuffling, sneaking attentions! — 
shame upon the world ! Wealth and power com- 
mand its adulation, while real genius and worth, 
without these, are neglected and contemned. 

" In nature's simplest habit clad, 
No wealth nor power had he; 
Genius and worth were all he had, 
But these were all to me." 

Forgive my quoting my most favourite lines. You 
spoke of being here to-morrow evening. I believe 
you would be the first to tire of our society ; but I 
tremble for censorious remarks : — however, we must 
be sober in our hours. I am flat to-day — so adieu ! 
I was not so cheerful last night as I wished. For- 
give me. I am yours, 

Clarinda. 



208 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 



LETTER XL. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Friday Mornings 7 o'clock, [Fehrtiary Sth.] 

Your fears for Mary are truly laughable. I sup- 
pose, my love, you and I showed her a scene which, 
perhaps, made her wish that she had a swain, and 
one who could love like me ; and 'tis a thousand 
pities that so good a heart as hers should want an 
aim, an object. I am miserably stupid this morning. 
Yesterday I dined with a Baronet, and sat pretty 
late over the bottle. And "who hath wo — who 
hath sorrow ? they that tarry long at the wine ; 
they that go to seek mixed wine." Forgive me, 
likewise, a quotation from my favourite author. 
Solomon's knowledge of the world is very great. 
He may be looked on as the " Spectator " or " Ad- 
venturer " of his day : and it is, indeed, surprising 
w^hat a sameness has ever been in human nature. 
The broken, but strongly characterizing hints, that 
the royal author gives us of the manners of the court 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 209 

of Jerusalem and country of Israel are, in their 
great outlines, the same pictures that London and 
England, Versailles and France exhibit some three 
thousand years later. The loves in the " Song of 
Songs" are all in the spirit of Lady M. W. Mon- 
tague, or Madame Ninon de I'Enclos ; though, for 
my part, I dislike both the ancient and modern vo- 
luptuaries ; and will dare to affirm, that such an at- 
tachment as mine to Clarinda, and such evenings as 
she and I have spent, are what these greatly respect- 
able and deeply experienced Judges of Life and 
Love never dreamed of. 

I shall be with you this evening between eight 
and nine, and shall keep as sober hours as you could 
wish. I am ever, my dear Madam, yours, 

Sylvander* 



210 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 



LETTER XLT. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[February 13/A.] 

My ever dearest Clarinda, — I make a numerous 
dinner-party wait me while I read yours* and write 
this. Do not require that I should cease to love 
you, to adore you in my soul ; 'tis to me impossible : 
your peace and happiness are to me dearer than my 
soul. Name the terms on which you wish to see 
me, to correspond with me, and you have them. I 
must love, pine, mourn, and adore in secret : this 
you must not deny me. You will ever be to me 

" Dear as the light that visits those sad eyes, 
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart." 

I have not patience to read the puritanic scrawl. 
Damned Sophistry. Ye heavens, thou God of na- 
ture, thou Redeemer of mankind ! ye look dow^n 

* The letters of Clarinda referred to in this and the three 
following letters, were not found by the Editor among the 
papers of Mrs. M'Lehose, when delivered to him. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 211 

with approving eyes on a passion inspired by the 
purest flame, and guarded by truth, delicacy, and 
honour ! but the half-inch soul of an unfeeling, cold- 
blooded, pitiful Presbyterian bigot cannot forgive 
any thing above his dungeon-bosom and foggy 
head. 

Farewell ! — I'll be with you to-morrow evening ; 
and be at rest in your mind. I will be yours in the 
way you think most to your happiness. I dare not 
proceed. I love, and will love you ; and will, with 
joyous confidence, approach the throne of the Al- 
mighty Judge of men with your dear idea ; and will 
despise the scum of sentiment, and the mist of soph- 
istry. 

Sylvander. 



LETTER XLII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Wednesday, Midnight, [Februanj 13th.] 

Madam — After a wretched day, I am preparing 
for a sleepless night. I am going to address myself 



212 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

to the Almighty Witness of my actions — sometimes, 
perhaps very soon, my Almighty Judge. I am not 
going to be the advocate of Passion — be Thou my 
inspirer and testimony, God, as I plead the cause 
of truth ! 

I have read over your friend's haughty dictatorial 
letter ; you are only answerable to your God in 
such a matter. Who gave any fellow-creature of 
yours, (a fellow-creature incapable of being your 
judge, because not your peer,) a right to catechise, 
scold, undervalue, abuse, and insult, wantonly and 
unhumanly to insult you thus? I don't wish, not 
even wish to deceive you, madam. The Searcher 
of hearts is my witness how dear you are to me ; 
but though it were possible you could be still dearer 
to me, I would not even kiss your hand, at the ex- 
pense of your conscience. Away with declamation! 
let us appeal to the bar of common sense. It is not 
mouthing every thing sacred ; it is not vague rant- 
ing assertions; it is not assuming, haughtily and in- 
sultingly assuming, the dictatorial language of a 
Roman Pontiff, that must dissolve a union like ours. 
Tell me, madam, are you under the least shadow of 
an obligation to bestow your love, tenderness, ca- 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 213 

resses, affections, heart and soul, on Mr. M'Lehose^ 
the man who has repeatedly, habitually, and bar- 
barously broken through every tie of duty, nature, 
or gratitude to you ? The laws of your country in- 
deed, for the most useful reasons of policy and 
sound government, have made your person invio- 
late; but are your heart and affections bound to 
one who gives not the least return of either to you ? 
You cannot do it ; it is not in the nature of things 
that you are bound to do it ; the common feelings 
of humanity forbid it. Have you, then, a heart and 
affections which are no man's right ? You have. 
It would be highly, ridiculously absurd to suppose 
the contrary. Tell me then, in the name of common 
sense, can it be wrong — is such a supposition com- 
patible with the plainest ideas of right and wrong, 
that it is improper to bestow the heart and these af- 
fections on another — while that bestowing is not in 
the smallest degree hurtful to your duty to God, to 
your children, to yourself, or to society at large ? 

This is the great test ; the consequences : let us 

see them. In a widowed, forlorn, lonely situation, 

with a bosom glowing with love and tenderness, yet 

so delicately situated that you cannot indulge these 

10* 



214 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

nobler feelings except you meet with a man who 
has a soul capable * * * 

# * # # # 

# * # # # 

# * # * # 



LETTER XLIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[February lith.] 

" I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan." 
I have suffered, Clarinda, from your letter. My soul 
was in arms at the sad perusal. I dreaded that I 
had acted wrong. If I have wronged you, God 
forgive me. But, Clarinda, be comforted. Let us 
raise the tone of our feelings a little higher and 
bolder. A fellow-creature who leaves us — who 
spurns us without just cause, though once our bosom 
friend — up with a little honest pride : let them go. 
How shall I comfort you, who am the cause of the 
injury ? Can I wish that I had never seen you — 
that we had never met ? No, I never will. But, 
have I thrown you friendless? — there is almost dis- 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 215 

traction in the thought. Father of mercies ! against 
thee often have I sinned : through thy grace I will 
endeavour to do so no more. She who Thou know- 
est is dearer to me than myself, — pour Thou the 
balm of peace into her past wounds, and hedge her 
about with Thy peculiar care, all her future days 
and nights. Strengthen her tender, noble mind, 
firmly to suffer and magnanimously to bear. Make 
me worthy of that friendship, that love she honours 
me with. May my attachment to her be pure as 
devotion, and lasting as immortal life. O, Almighty 
Goodness, hear me ! Be to her, at all times, parti- 
cularly in the hour of distress or trial, a friend and 
comforter, a guide and guard. 

" How are thy servants blest, O Lord, 
How sure is their defence ! 
Eternal wisdom is their guide, 
Their help Omnipotence." 

Forgive me, Clarinda, the injury I have done you. 

To-night I shall be with you, as indeed I shall be ill 

at ease till I see you. 

Sylvander. 



216 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

LETTER XLIV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Two o'clock, [Fehruary 14</i.] 

I just now received your first letter of yesterday, 
by the careless negligence of the penny-post. Cla- 
rinda, matters are grown very serious with us : then 
seriously hear me, and hear me, Heaven ! 

I met you, my dear Clarinda, by far the first 
of womankind, at least to me. I esteemed, I loved 
you at first sight, both of which attachments you 
have done me the honour to return. The longer I 
am acquainted with you, the more innate amiable- 
ness and worth I discover in you. You have suf- 
fered a loss, I confess, for my sake ; but if the firmest, 
steadiest, w^armest friendship; if every endeavour to 
be worthy of your friendship ; if a love, strong as the 
ties of nature, and holy as the duties of religion ; if 
all these can make any thing like a compensation 
for the evil I have occasioned you ; if they be worth 
your acceptance, or can in the least add to your 
enjoyments, — so help Sylvander, ye Powers above, 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 217 

in his hour of need, as he freely gives these all to 
Clarinda ! 

I esteem you, I love you, as a friend : I admire 
you, I love you, as a woman, beyond any one in all 
the circle of creation. I know I shall continue to 
esteem you, to love you, to pray for you, nay, to 
pray for myself for your sake. 

Expect me at eight ; and believe me to be ever, 
my dearest Madam, yours mcst entirely, 

Sylvander. 



LETTER XLV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[February 15th. } 

When matters, my love, are desperate, we must 
put on a desperate face — 

" On reason build resolve, 
That column of true majesty in man" — 

or, as the same author finely says in another place, 

"Let thy soul spring up, 
And lay strong hold for help on him that made thee." 



218 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

I am yours, Clarinda, for life. Never be discour- 
aged at all this. Look forward : in a few weeks I 
shall be somewhere or other, out of the possibility 
of seeing you : till then, I shall write you often, but 
visit you seldom. Your fame, your welfare, your 
happiness, are dearer to me than any gratification 
whatever. Be comforted, my love ! the present mo- 
ment is the worst; the lenient hand of time is daily 
and hourly either lightening the burden, or making 
us insensible to the weight. None of these friends 

— I mean Mr. and the other gentleman — 

can hurt your worldly support : and of their friend- 
ship, in a little time you will learn to be easy, and 
by and by to be happy without it. A decent means 
of livelihood in the world, an approving God, a 
peaceful conscience, and one firm trusty friend — 
can any body that has these be said to be unhappy ? 
These are yours. 

To-morrow evening I shall be with you about 
eight, probably for the last time till I return to Edin- 
burgh. In the meantime, should any of these two 
unlucky friends question you respecting me, whether 
I am the man, I do not think they are entitled to 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 219 

any information. As to their jealousy and spying, 
I despise them. 

Adieu ! my dearest Madam ! 

Sylvander. 



LETTER XLVI. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Glasgow, Monday Evenings JVine o^clockj 
[February 18th.} 

The attraction of Love, I find, is in an inverse 
proportion to the attraction of the Newtonian phi- 
losophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer 
objects were to one another, the stronger was the 
attractive force. In my system, every milestone 
that marked my progress from Clarinda, awakened 
a keener pang of attachment to her. How do you 
feel, my love ? Is your heart ill at ease ? I fear it. 
God forbid that these persecutors should harass that 
peace, which is more precious to me than my own. 
Be assured I shall ever think on you, muse on you, 
and, in my moments of devotion, pray for you. 
The hour that you are not in my thoughts, " be that 



220 SYLVANDEFv TO CLARTNDA. 

hour darkness ; let the shadows of death cover it ; 
let it not be numbered in the hours of the day !" 

" When I forget the darling theme, 

Be my tongue mute ! my fancy paint no more I 
And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat !" 

I have just met with my old friend, the ship Cap- 
tain* — guess my pleasure ', to meet you could alone 
have given me more. My brother William, too, 
the young saddler, has come to Glasgow to meet 
me ; and here are we three spending the evening. 

I arrived here too late to write by post, but I'll 
wrap half-a-dozen sheets of blank paper together, 
and send it by the Fly, under the name of a parcel. 
You shall hear from me next post town. I would 
write you a longer letter, but for the present circum- 
stances of my friend. 

Adieu, my Clarinda ! I am just going to propose 
your health by way of grace-drink. 

Sylvander. 

* Mr, Richard Brown, alluded to in the Poet's autobiogra- 
phy " as a very noble character, but a hapless son of Misfor- 
tune," whose acquaintance he had formed at Irvine. 



CLARINPA TO SYLVANDER. 221 



LETTER XLVII. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Edinburgh, Tuesday Evenings Nine o'clock^ 
[19?/i February.'] 

Mr. has just left me, after half an hour's 

most pathetic conversation. I told him of the 
usage I had met with on Sunday night, which he 
condemned much, as unmanly and ungenerous. I 
expressed my thanks for his call ; but he told me, 
it " was merely to hide the change in his friendship 
from the world." Think how I was mortified : I 
•was, indeed ; and affected so, as hardly to restrain 
tears. He did not name you ; but spoke in terms 
that showed plainly he knew. Would to God he 
knew my Sylvander as I do ! then might I hope to 
retain his friendship still; but I have made my 
choice, and you alone can ever make me repent it. 
Yet, while I live, I must regret the loss of such a 
man's friendship. My dear generous friend of my 
soul does so too. I love him for it ! Yesterday I 
thought of you, and went over to Miss Nimmo, to 



222 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

have the luxury of talking of you. She was most 
kind ; and praised you more than ever, as a man of 
worth, honour, genius. Oh, how I could have lis- 
tened to her for ever ! She says, she is afraid our 
attachment will be lasting. I stayed tea, w^as 
asked kindly, and did not choose to refuse, as I 
stayed last time w^hen you were of the party. I 
wish you were here to-night to comfort me. I feel 
hurt and depressed ; but to-morrow I hope for a 
cordial from your dear hand ! I must bid you good 
night. Remember your Clarinda. Every blessing 
be yours ! 

Your letter this moment. Why did you write 
before to-day 1 Thank you for it. I figure your 
heartfelt enjoyment last night. Oh, to have been 
of the party ! Where was it ? I'd like to know 
the very spot. My head aches so I can't write 
more ; but I have kissed your dear lines over and 
over. Adieu ! I'll finish this to-morrow. Your 

Clarinda. 

Wednesday^ Eleven 

Mary was at my bedside by eight this morning. 
We had much chat about you. She is an affec- 
tionate, faithful soul. She tells me her defence of 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 223 

you was so warm, in a large company where you 
were blamed for some trivial affair, that she left 
them impressed with the idea of her being in love. 
She laughs, and says, " 'tis pity to have the skaith, 
and nothing for her pains." 

My spirits are greatly better to-day. I am a 
little anxious about Willie — his leg is to be lanced 
this day, and I shall be fluttered till the operation is 
fairly over. Mr. Wood thinks he will soon get 
well, when the matter lodged in it is discussed. God 
grant it ! Oh, how can I ever be ungrateful to that 
good Providence, who has blest me with so many 
undeserved mercies, and saved me often from the 
ruin I courted ! The heart that feels its continual 
dependence on the Almighty, is bound to keep His 
laws by a tie stronger and tenderer than any human 
obligation. The feeling of Honour is a noble and 
powerful one, but can we be honourable to a fellow- 
creature, and basely unmindful of our bountiful 
Benefactor, to whom we are indebted for life and all 
its blessings ; and even for those very distinguishing 
qualities. Honour, Genius, and Benevolence ? 

I am sure you enter into these ideas; did you 
think with me in all points, I should be too happy ; 



224 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

but I'll be silent. I may wish and pray, but you 
shall never again accuse me of presumption. My 
dear, I write you this to Mauchline, to be waiting 
you. I hope, nay I am sure, 'twill be welcome. 

You are an extravagant prodigal in more essen- 
tial things than affection. To-day's post would 
have brought me yours and saved you sixpence. 
However, it pleased me to know that, though absent 
in body, " you were present with me in spirit." 

Do you know a Miss Nelly Hamilton in Ayr, 
daughter to a Captain John H. of the Excise cut- 
ter ? I staid with her at Kailzie, and love her. 
She is a dear, amiable, romantic girl. I wish much 
to write to her, and will inclose it for you to deliver, 
personally, if agreeable. She raved about your 
poems in summer, and wished to be acquainted. 
Let me know if you have any objections. She is an 
intimate of Miss Nimmo too. I think the streets 
look deserted-like since Monday ; and there 's a cer- 
tain insipidity in good kind of folks I once enjoyed 
not a little. You, who are a casuist, explain these 
deep enigmas. Miss Wardrobe supped here on 
Monday. She once named you, which kept me 
from falling asleep. I drank your health in a glass 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 225 

of ale — as the lasses do at Hallowe'en, — " in to 
raysel." 

Happy Sylvander ! to meet with the dear chari- 
ties of brother, sister, parent ! whilst I have none of 
these, and belong to nobody. Yes, I have my chil- 
dren, and my heart's friend, Sylvander — the only 
one I have ever found capable of that nameless, 
delicate attachment, which none but noble, romantic 
minds can comprehend. I envy you the Captain's 
society. Don't tell him of the " Iron Chain," lest 
he call us both fools. I saw the happy trio in my 
mind's eye. So absence increases your fondness: 
'tis ever so in great souls. Let the poor worldlings 
enjoy (possess, I mean, for they can't enjoy) their 
golden dish ; we have each of us an estate, derived 
from the Father of the Universe, into whose hands 
I trust we'll return it, cultivated, so as to prove an 
inexhaustible treasure through the endless ages of 
eternity ! 

J]fternoon. 

Mr. Wood has not come, so the affair is not 
over. I hesitate about sending this till I hear 
further ; but I think you said you'd be at M. on 



226 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

Thursday : at any rate you'll get this on your ar- 
rival. 

Farewell ! may you ever abide under the shadow 
of the Almighty. Yours, 

Clarinda. 



LETTER XLVIIT. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Kilmarnock, Friday^ \p2d Fehruary.] 

I wrote you, my dear madam, the moment I 
alighted in Glasgow. Since then I have not had 
opportunity : for in Paisley, w^here I arrived next 
day, my worthy, wise friend, Mr. Pattison, did not 
allow me a moment's respite. I was there ten 
hours ; during \vhich time I was introduced to nine 
men worth six thousands; five men worth ten 
thousands ; his brother, richly worth twenty thou- 
sands ; and a young weaver, who will have thirty 
thousands good when his father, who has no more 
children than the said weaver, and a Whig-kirk, 
dies. Mr. P. was bred a zealous Antiburgher; but, 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 227 

during his widowerhood, he has found their strictness 
incompatible with certain compromises he is often 
obliged to make with those Powers of darkness — the 
devil, the world, and the flesh : so he, good merciful 
man! talked privately to me of the absurdity of 
eternal torments ; the liberality of sentiment in in- 
dulging the honest instincts of nature ; the mysteries 
of * * *, &c. He has a son, however, that, at 
sixteen, has repeatedly minted* at certain privileges, 
only proper for sober, staid men, who can use the 
good things of this life without abusing them ; but 
the father's parental vigilance has hitherto hedged 
him in, amid a corrupt and evil world. 

His only daughter, who, " if the beast be to the 
fore, and the branks bide hale," will have seven 
thousand pounds when her old father steps into the 
dark Factory-olfice of Eternity, with his well- 
thrummed web of life, has put him again and again 
in a commendable fit of indignation, by requesting a 
harpsichord ! " O ! these boarding-schools !" ex- 
claims my prudent friend. " She was a good spin- 
ner and sewer, till I was advised by her foes and 
mine to give her a year of Edinburgh !" 

* Anglice — aimed at — attempted. 



228 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

After two bottles more, my much-respected friend 
opened up to me a project, a legitimate child of Wis- 
dom and Good Sense ; 'twas no less than a long- 
thought-on and deeply-matured design, to marry a 
girl, fully as elegant in her form as the famous 
priestess whom Saul consulted in his last hours, and 
who had been second maid of honour to his deceased 
wife. This, you may be sure, I highly applauded ; 
so I hope for a pair of gloves by and by. I spent 
the two by-past days at Dunlop House with that 
worthy family to whom I was deeply indebted early 
in my poetic career ; and in about two hours I shall 
present your " twa wee sarkies" to the little fellow.* 
My dearest Clarinda, you are ever present with me ; 
and these hours that drawl by among the fools and 
rascals of this world, are only supportable in the 
idea, that they are the forerunners of that happy 
hour, that ushers me to " the mistress of my soul." 
Next week I shall visit Dumfries, and next again 
return to Edinburgh. My letters, in these hurrying 
dissipated hours, will be heavy trash ; but you know 

the writer. 

God bless you. 

SVLVANDER. 
* See page 115. 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 229 



LETTER XLIX. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Edinburgh, Friday Evenings [22rf Fe&.] 

I wish you had given me a hint, my dear Sylvan- 
der, that you were to write me only once in a week. 
Yesterday I looked for a letter ; to-day, never doubt- 
ed it ; but both days have terminated in disappoint- 
ment. A thousand conjectures have conspired to 
make me most unhappy. Often have I suffered 
much disquiet from forming the idea of such an 
attention, on such and such an occasion, and expe- 
rienced quite the reverse. But in you, and you 
alone, I have ever found my highest demands of 
kindness accomplished ; nay, even my fondest wishes, 
not gratified only, but anticipated ! To what, then, 
can I attribute your not writing me one hne since 
Monday 1 

God forbid that your nervous ailment has inca- 
pacitated you for that office, from which you de- 
rived pleasure singly j as well as that most dehcate 
11 



230 CLAHINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

of all enjoyments, pleasure reflected. To-raorrow 
I shall hope to hear from you. Hope, blessed hope, 
thou balm of every woe, possess and fill my bosom 
with thy benign influence. 

I have been solitary since the tender farewell, till 
to-night. I was solicited to go to Dr. Moyes' lec- 
ture with Miss Craig, and a gallant of hers, a stu- 
dent ; one of the many stupid animals, knowing only 
in the Science of Puppyism, '' or the nice conduct 
of a clouded cane." With what sovereign con- 
tempt did I compare his trite, insipid frivolity, with 
the intelligent, manly observation which ever marks 
the conversation of Sylvander. He is a glorious 
piece of divine workmanship, Dr. Moyes. The 
subject to-night was the origin of minerals, springs, 
lakes, and the ocean. Many parts were far beyond 
my weak comprehension, and indeed that of most 
women. What I understood delighted me, and 
altogether raised my thoughts to the infinite wisdom 
and boundless goodness of the Deity. The man 
himself marks both. Presented with a universal 
blank of Nature's works, his mind appears to be 
illuminated with Celestial light. He concluded 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 231 

with some lines of the Essay on Man : " All are but 
parts of one stupendous whole," &c. ; a passage 
I have often read with sublime pleasure. 

Miss Burnet* sat just behind me. What an 
angelic girl ! I stared at her, having never seen her 
so near. I remembered you talking of her, &c. 
What felicity to witness her " Softly speak and 
sweetly smile !" How could you celebrate any 
other Clarinda ! Oh, I would have adored you, as 
Pope of exquisite taste and refinement, had you 
loved, sighed, and written upon her for ever ! 
breathing your passion only to the woods and 
streams. But Poets, I find, are not quite incorporeal, 
more than others. My dear Sylvander, to be seri- 
ous, I really wonder you ever admired Clarinda, 
after beholding Miss Burnet's superior charms. If 
I don't hear to-morrow, I shall form dreadful rea- 
sons. God forbid ! Bishop Geddes was within a 

* This young lady died of consumption in 1790, at the age 
of twenty-five. She was second daughter of the eccentric 
Lord Monboddo, and refused several advantageous offers of 
marriage, to nurse his declining years. She was a rare com- 
bination of beauty, grace, and goodness. 



232 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

foot of me, too. What field for contemplation — 
both! 

Good night. God bless you, prays 

-.-^ Clarinda. 



..; LETTER L. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Cumnock, 2d March, 1788. 

I hope and am certain that my generous Clarinda 
will not think my silence, for now a long week, has 
been in any degree owing to my forgetfulness. I 
have been tossed about through the country ever 
since I wrote you; and am here returning from 
Dumfries-shire, at an inn, the post-office of the 
place, with just so long time as my horse eats his 
corn, to write you. I have been hurried with busi- 
ness and dissipation, almost equal to the insidious 
degree of the Persian monarch's mandate, when he 
forbade asking petition of God or man for forty days. 
Had the venerable prophet been as strong as I, he 
had not broken the decree ; at least not thrice a-day. 

I am thinking my farming scheme will yet hold. 
A worthy intelligent farmer, my father's friend and 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 233 

my own, has been with me on the spot : he thinks 
the bargain practicable. I am myself, on a more 
serious review of the lands, much better pleased 
with them. I won't mention this in writing to any 
body but you and Mr. Ainslie. Don't accuse me of 
being fickle ; I have the two plans of life before me, 
and I wish to adopt the one most likely to procure 
me independence. 

I shall be in Edinburgh next week. I long to 
see you ; your image is omnipresent to me ; nay, I 
am convinced I would soon idolatrize i( most seri- 
ously ; so much do absence and memory improve the 
medium through which one sees the much-loved 
object. To-night, at the sacred hour of eight, I 
expect to meet you at the Throne of Grace. I hope, 
as I go home to-night, to find a letter from you at 
the post-office in Mauchline ; I have just once seen 
that dear hand since I left Edinburgh ; a letter, 
indeed, which much affected me. Tell me, first of 
womankind, will my warmest attachment, my sin- 
cerest friendship, my correspondence, — wull they be 
any compensation for the sacrifices you make for my 
sake ? If they will, they are yours. If I settle on 
the farm I propose, I am just a day and a half's ride 



234 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

from Edinburgh. We shall meet : don't you say, 
*' Perhaps, too often !" 

Farewell, my fair, my charming Poetess ! May 
all good things ever attend you. 

I am ever, my dearest Madam, 
Yours, 

Sylvander. 



LETTER LI. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Edinburgh, March 5th, 1788. 

I received yours from Cumnock about an hour 
ago ; and to show you my good-nature, sit down to 
write to you immediately. I fear, Sylvander, you 
overvalue my generosity; for, believe me, it will be 
some time ere I can cordially forgive you the pain 
your silence has caused me ! Did you ever feel that 
sickness of heart which arises from " hope defer- 
red V That, the cruellest of pains, you have in- 
flicted on me for eight days by-past. I hope I can 
make every reasonable allowance for the hurry of 
business and dissipation. Yet, had I been ever so 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 235 

engrossed, I should have found one hour out of the 
twenty-four to write you. No more of it : I accept 
of your apologies; but am hurt that any should 
have been necessary betwixt us on such a tender 
occasion. 

I am happy that the farming scheme promises so 
well. There's no fickleness, my dear sir, in changing 
for the better. I never liked the Excise for you ; 
and feel a sensible pleasure in the hope of your be- 
coming a sober, industrious farmer. My prayers, in 
this affair, are heard, I hope, so far : may they be 
answered completely! The distance is the only 
thing I regret ; but, whatever tends to your welfare, 
overweighs all other considerations. I hope ere 
then to grow wiser, and to lie easy under weeks' 
silence. I had begun to think that you had fully 
experienced the truth of Sir Isaac's philosophy. 

I have been under unspeakable obligations to 
your friend, Mr. Ainslie. I had not a mortal to 
whom I could speak of your name but him. He 
has called often ; and, by sympathy, not a little 
alleviated my anxiety. I tremble lest you should 
have devolved, what you used to term your " folly," 
upon Clarinda : raore's the pity. 'Tis never grace- 



236 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

ful but on the male side ; but I shall learn more 
wisdom in future. Example has often good effects. 
I got both your letters from Kilmarnock and 
Mauchline, and would, perhaps, have written to you 
unbidden, had I known any thing of the geography 
of the country ; but I knew not whether you would 
return by Mauchline or not, nor could Mr. Ainslie 
inform me. I have met with several little rubs, that 
hurt me the more that I had not a bosom to pour 
them into — 

" On some fond breast the feeling soul relies." 

Mary I have not once set eyes on, since I wrote 
to you. Oh, that I should be formed susceptible of 
kindness, never, never to be fully, or, at least, 
habitually returned! "Trim," (said my Uncle 
Toby,) " I wish. Trim, I were dead." 

Mr. Ainslie called just now to tell me he had 
heard from you. You would see, by my last, how 
anxious I was, even then, to hear from you. 'Tis 
the first time I ever had reason to be so : I hope 
'twill be the last. My thoughts were yours both 
Sunday nights at eight. Why should my letter 
have affected you ? You know I count all things 



CL/^RINDA TO SYLVANDER. 237 

(Heaven excepted) but loss, that I may win and 
keep you. I supped at Mr. Kemp's on Friday. 
Had you been an invisible spectator with what per- 
fect ease I acquitted myself, you would have been 
pleased, highly pleased wath me. 

Interrupted by a visit from Miss R . She 

was inquiring kindly for you. I delivered your 
compliments to her. She means (as you once said) 
all the kindness in the world, but she wants that 
" finer chord." Ah ! Sylvander, happy, in my mind, 
are they who are void of it. Alas! it too often 
thrills with anguish. 

I hope you have not forgotten to kiss the little 
cherub for me. Give him fifty, and think Clarinda 
blessing him all the while. I pity his mother sin- 
cerely, and wish a certain affair happily over. My 
Willie is in good health, except his leg, which con- 
fines him close since it w^as opened ; and Mr. Wood 
says it will be a very tedious affair. He has pre- 
scribed sea-bathing as soon as the season admits. 
I never see Miss Nimmo. Her indifference wounds 
me ; but all these things make me fly to the Father 
of Mercies, who is the inexhaustible Fountain of 
11* 



238 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

all kindness. How could you ever mention '^ post- 
ages ?" I counted on a crown at least ; and have 
only spent one poor shilling. If I had but a shil- 
ling in the world, you should have sixpence; 
nay, eightpence, if I could contrive to live on a 
groat. I am avaricious only in your letters ; you 
are so, indeed. Farewell. 

Yours, 

Clarinda. 



LETTER LII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[6th March.] 

I own myself guilty, Clarinda : I should have 
written you last week. But when you recollect, 
my dearest madam, that yours of this night's post, is 
only the third I have from you, and that this is the 
fifth or sixth I have sent to you, you will not re- 
proach me, with a good grace, for unkind ness. I 
have always some kind of idea, not to sit down to 
write a letter, except I have time, and possession of 
my faculties, so as to do some justice to my letter ; 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 239 

■which at present is rarely my situation. For in- 
stance, yesterda) I dined at a friend's at some dis- 
tance : the savage hospitahty of this country spent 
me the most part of the night over the nauseous 
potion in the bowl. This day — sick — headache — 
low spirits — miserable— fasting, except for a draught 
of water or small beer. Now eight o'clock at 
night ; only able to crawl ten minutes' walk into 
Mauchline, to wait the post, in the pleasurable hope 
of hearing from the mistress of my soul. 

But, truce with all this ! When I sit down to 
write to you, all is happiness and peace. A hun- 
dred times a-day do I figure you before your taper, 
—your book or work laid aside as I get within the 
room. How happy have I been ! and how little of 
that scantUng portion of time, called the life of man, 
is sacred to happiness, much less transport. 

I could moralize to-night, Uke a death's-head. 

" O what is life, that thoughtless wish of all ! 
A drop of honey in a draught of gall." 

Nothing astonishes me more, when a little sick- 
ness clogs the wheels of life, than the thoughtless 
career ^ve run in the hour of health. " None saith, 
where is God, my Maker, that giveth songs in the 



240 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

night : who teacheth us more knowledge than the 
beaols of the field, and more understanding than the 
fowls of the air." 

Give me, my Maker, to remember thee! Give 
roe, to act up to the dignity of my nature ! Give 
me, to feel '^ another's wo ;" and continue with me 
that dear loved friend that feels with mine! 

The dignifying and dignified consciousness of an 
honest man, and the well-grounded trust in ap- 
p»*oving Heaven, are two most substantial founda- 
tions of happiness. *& * * 
***** 

I could not have written a page to any mortal, 
except yourself. I'll write you by Sunday's post. 
Adieu. Good night. 

Sylvander. 



LETTER LIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

MossGiEL, 7th March, 1788. 

Clarinda, I have been so stung with your re- 
proach for unkindness, — a sin so unlike me, a sin 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 241 

I detest more than a breach of the whole Decalogue, 
fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth articles excepted, — 
that I believe I shall not rest in my grave about it, 
if I die before I see you. You have often allowed 
me the head to judge, and the heart to feel the influ- 
ence of female excellence : was it not blasphemy, 
then, against your own charms, and against my 
feelings, to suppose that a short fortnight could 
abate my passion ? 

You, ray love, may have your cares and anxieties 
to disturb you ; but they are the usual occurrences of 
life. Your future views are fixed, and your mind in 
a settled routine. Could not you, my ever dearest 
madam, make a little allowance for a man, after 
long absence, paying a short visit to a country full 
of friends, relations, and early intimates 1 Cannot 
you guess, my Clarinda, what thoughts, what cares, 
what anxious forebodings, hopes, and fears, must 
crowd the breast of the man of keen sensibility, 
when no less is on the tapis than his aim, his em- 
ployment, his very existence through future life ? 

To be overtopped in any thing else, I can bear ; 
but in the tests of generous love, I defy all mankind ! 
not even to the tender, the fond, the loving Clarin- 



242 SYLVANDER TO CLAEINDA. 

da — she whose strength of attachment, whose melt- 
ing soul, may vie with Eloisa and Sappho, not even 
she can overpay the affection she owes me ! 

Now that not my apology, but ray defence is 
made, I feel my soul respire more easily. I know 
you will go along with me in my justification: 
would to Heaven you could in my adoption, too ! I 
mean an adoption beneath the stars — an adoption 
where I might revel in the immediate beams of 

" She the bright sun of all her sex." 

I would not have you, my dear madam, so much 
hurt at Miss Nimmo's coldness. 'Tis placing your- 
self below her, an honour she by no means deserves. 
We ought, when we wish to be economists in hap- 
piness — we ought, in the first place, to fix the stand- 
ard of our own character; and when, on full ex- 
amination, we know where we stand, and how much 
ground we occupy, let us contend for it as property ; 
and those, who seem to doubt, or deny us what is 
justly ours, let us either pity their prejudices, or 
despise their judgment. I know, my dear, you will 
say, this is self-conceit ; but I call it self-knowledge : 
the one is the overweening opinion of a fool, who 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 243 

fancies himself to be, what he wishes himself to be 
thought ; the other is the honest justice that a man 
of sense, who has thoroughly examined the subject, 
owes to himself. Without this standard, this column 
in our own mind, we are perpetually at the mercy of 
the petulance, the mistakes, the prejudices, nay, the 
very weakness and w^ickedness of our fellow-crea- 
tures. 

I urge this, my dear, both to confirm myself in the 
doctrine, which I assure you, I sometimes need, and 
because I know, that this causes you often much 

disquiet. To return to Miss N . She is, most 

certainly, a worthy soul ; and equalled by very, very 
few in goodness of heart. But can she boast more 
goodness of heart than Clarinda ? Not even preju- 
dice will dare to say so : for penetration and discern- 
ment, Clarinda sees far beyond her. To wit. Miss 
N— — dare make no pretence : to Clarinda's wit, 
scarce any of her sex dare make pretence. Personal 
charms, it would be ridiculous to run the parallel : 

and for conduct in life. Miss N was never called 

out, either much to do, or to suffer. Clarinda has 
been both -, and has performed her part, where Miss 
N would have sunk at the bare idea. 



244 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

Away, then, with these disquietudes I Let us pray 
•with the honest weaver of Kilbarchan, " Lord, send 
us a gude conceit o' oursel !" or in the words of the 
auld sang, 

"Who does me disdain, I can scorn them again, 
And I'll never mind any such foes." 

There is an error in the commerce of intimacy. 

^ -TV^ -T? W 

* * * * 

* # * * 

Happy is our lot, indeed, when we meet with an 
honest merchant, who is quahfied to deal with us on 
our own terms ; but that is a rarity : with almost 
every body we must pocket our pearls, less or more : 
and learn, in the old Scots phrase, " to gie sic like 
as we get." For this reason, we should try to erect 
a kind of bank or storehouse in our own mind ; or, 
as the Psalmist says, " We should commune with 

our own hearts, and be still." * * 

* * * * 

I WTOte you yesternight, which will reach you 
long before this can. I may write Mr. Ainslie be- 
fore I see him, but I am not sure. 

Farewell ! and remember 

Sylvandkr. 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 245 



LETTER LIV. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Edinburgh, Sth March, 1788. 
I was agreeably surprised by your answer to mine 
of Wednesday coming this morning. I thought it 
always took two days, a letter from this to Mauch- 
line, and did not expect yours sooner than Monday. 
This is the fifth from you, and the fourth time I am 
now writing you. I hate calculating them : like 
some things, they don't do to be numbered. I wish 
you had written from Dumfries, as you promised ; 
but I do not impute it to any cause but hurry of 
business, &c. I hope I shall never live to reproach 
you with unkindness. You never ought to put off 
til! you " have time to do justice to your letters." I 
have sufficient memorials of your abilities in that 
way ; and last week two hnes, to have said, " How 
do ye, my Clarinda 1" would have saved me days and 
nights of cruel disquietude. " A word to the wise," 
you know. I know human nature better than to 
expect always fine flights of fancy, or exertions of 



246 CLAUINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

genius, and feel in myself the effects of this " crazy 
mortal coil/' upon its glorious inhabitant. To-day, 
I have a clogging headache ; but, however stupid, I 
know (at least I hope) a letter from your heart's 
friend will be acceptable. It will reach you to- 
morrow, I hope. Shocking custom ! one can't en- 
tertain with hospitality, without taxing their guests 
with the consequences you mention. 

Your reflections upon the effects which sickness 
has on our retrospect of ourselves, are noble. I see 
my Sylvander will be all I wish him, before he 
leaves this world. Do you remember what simple 
eulogium I pronounced on you, when Miss Nimmo 
asked what I thought of you ? — " He is ane of God's 
ain ; but his time's no come yet." It was like a 
speech from your worthy mother — whom I revere. 
She would have joined me wath a heartfelt sigh, 
which none but mothers know% It is rather a bad 
picture of us, that we are most prone to call upon 
God in trouble. Ought not the daily blessings of 
health, peace, competence, friends — ought not these 
to awaken our constant gratitude to the Giver of 
all ? I imagine that the heart, which does not occa- 
sionally glow^ with filial love in the hours of pros- 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 247 

perity, can hardly hope to feel much comfort in fly- 
ing to God in the time of distress. O my dear Syl- 
vander ! that we may be enabled to set Him before 
us, as our witness, benefactor, and judge, at all 
times, and on all occasions. 

In the name of wonder, how could you spend ten 

hours with such a as Mr. Pattison ? What a 

despicable character ! Religion ! he knows only the 
name; none of her real votaries ever wished to 
make any such shameful compromises. But 'tis 
Scripture verified — the demon of avarice, his origin- 
al devil, finding him empty, called other seven more 
impure spirits, and so completely infernalized him. 
Destitute of discernment to perceive your merit, or 
taste to relish it, my astonishment at his fondness of 
you, is only surpassed by your more than Puritanic 
patience in listening to his shocking nonsense ! I 
hope you renewed his certificate. I was told it was 
in a tattered condition some months ago, and that 
then he proposed putting it on parchment, by way 
of preserving it. Don't call me severe : I hate all 
who would turn the " Grace of God into licentious- 
ness ;" 'tis commonly the weaker part of mankind 
who attempt it. 



248 CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

"Religion, thou soul of happiness.'' 

Yesterday morning in bed I happened to think of 
you. I said to myself, " My bonnie Lizzie Baillie," 
&c., and laughed ; but I felt a delicious swell of 
heart, and my eyes swam in tears. I know not if 
your sex ever feel this burst of affection ; 'tis an 
emotion indescribable. You see I'm grown a fool 
since you left me. You know I was rational, when 
you first knew me, but I always grow more foolish 
the farther I am from those I love ; by and by I sup- 
pose I shall be insane altogether. 

I am happy your little lamb is doing so well. 
Did you execute my commission 1 You had a great 
stock on hand ; and, if any agreeable customers 
came in the way, you would dispose of some of 
them I fancy, hoping soon to be supplied with a fresh 
assortment. For my part I can truly say, I have 
had no demand. I really believe you have taught 
me dignity, w^hich, partly through good nature, and 
partly by misfortune, had been, too much laid aside; 
which now I never will part with. Why should I 
not keep it up? Admired, esteemed, beloved by 
one of the first of mankind ! Not all the wealth of 
Peru could have purchased these. Oh, Sylvander, 



S-SLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 249 

1 am great in my own eyes when I think how high 
I am in your esteem ! You have shown me the 
merit I possess ; I knew it not before. Even Jo- 
seph trembled t'other day in my presence. " Hus- 
bands looked mild, and savages grew tame !" Love 
and cherish your friend Mr. Ainslie. He is your 
friend indeed. I long for next week ; happy days, 
I hope, yet await us. When you meet young Beau- 
ties, think of Clarinda's affection — of her situation — 
of how much her happiness depends on you. 

Farewell, till we meet ! God be with you. 

Clarinda. 

P. S. — Will you take the trouble to send for a 
small parcel, left at Dunlap and W^ilson's, Book- 
sellers, Trongate, Glasgow, for me, and bring it 
with you in the Fly ? 



LETTER LV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[3lst March.] 

I will meet you to-morrow, Clarinda, as you ap- 
point. My Excise affair is just concluded, and I 



250 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

have got my order for instructions : so far good. 
Wednesday night I am engaged to sup among some 
of the principals of the Excise : so can only make 
a call for you that evening ; but next day, I stay 
to dine with one of the Commissioners, so cannot go 
till Friday morning. 

Your hopes, your fears, your cares, my love, are 
mine; so don't mind them. I will take you in my 
hand through the dreary wilds of this world, and 
scare away the ravening bird or beast that would 
annoy you. I saw Mary in town to-day, and asked 
her if she had seen you. I shall certainly bespeak 
Mr. Ainslie as you desire. 

Excuse me, my dearest angel, this hurried scrawl 
and miserable paper; circumstances make both. 
Farewell till to-morrow. 

Sylvandek. 

Monday^ Noon. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 251 



LETTER LVI. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[8tk April.'] 

I am just hurrying away to wait on the Great 
Man, Clarinda ; but I have more respect to my own 
peace and happiness, than to set out without waiting 
on you; for my imagination, hke a child's favourite 
bird, will fondly flutter along with this scrawl, till it 
perch on your bosom. I thank you for all the hap- 
piness you bestowed on me yesterday. The walk 
— delightful; the evening — rapture. Do not be 
uneasy to-day, Clarinda; forgive me. I am in rather 
better spirits to-day, though I had but an indifferent 
night. Care, anxiety, sat on my spirits ; and all the 
cheerfulness of this morning is the fruit of some 
seriouSj^important ideas that lie, in their realities, 
beyond " the dark and the narrow house," as Os- 
sian, prince of poets, says. The Father of Mercies 
be with you, Clarinda ! and every good thing attend 

you ! 

Sylvander. 

Tuesday Morning. 



252 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 



LETTER LVII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Wednesday Mornings \dth Jlpril.^ 

Clarinda, will that envious night-cap hinder you 
from appearing at the window as I pass ? " Who 
is she that looketh forth as the morning ; fair as the 
sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with 
banners 1 " 

Do not accuse me of fond folly for this line ; you 
know I am a cool lover. I mean by these presents 
greeting, to let you to wit, that archrascal, Creech,* 
has not done my business yesternight, which has 
put off my leaving town till Monday morning. To- 
morrow, at eleven, I meet with him for the last 
time; just the hour I should have met far more 
agreeable company. 

* This eminent bookseller, who published the second edi- 
tion of Burns's poems, was a pleasant companion, but of penu- 
rious habits, and extremely dilatory in the settlement of ac- 
counts, though a man of considerable wealth. The Poet had 
liked him at first, but latterly chafed exceedingly under the 
delay which the publisher made in rendering payment. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 253 

You will tell me this evening, whether you can- 
not make our hour of meeting to-morrow one o'clock. 
I have just now written Creech such a letter, that 
the very goose-feather in my hand shrunk back from 
the Une, and seemed to say, " I exceedingly fear and 

quake !" I am forming ideal schemes of vengeance. 
***** 
Adieu, and think on 

Sylvander. 



LETTER LVIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Friday^ Mne o'clock, Night, \l\th April.] 

I am just now come in, and have read your letter. 
The first thing I did, was to thank the Divine Dis- 
poser of events, that he has had such happiness in 
store for me as the connexion I have with you. 
Life, my Clarinda, is a weary, barren path ; and wo 
be to him or her that ventures on it alone ! For me, 
I have my dearest partner of my soul : Clarinda and 
I will make out our pilgrimage together. Wherever 
I am, I shall constantly l§t her know how I go on, 
what I observe in the world around me, and what 
12 



254 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

adventures I meet with. Will it please you, my 
love, to get, every week, or, at least, every fortnight, 
a packet, two or three sheets, full of remarks, non- 
sense, news, rhymes, and old songs ? 

Will you open, with satisfaction and delight, a 
letter from a man who loves you, who has loved you, 
and who will love you to death, through death, and 
for ever ? Oh Clarinda ! what do I owe to Heaven 
for blessing me with such a piece of exalted excel- 
lence as you ! 1 call over your idea, as a miser counts 
over his treasure ! Tell me, were you studious to 
please me last night 'i I am sure you did it to trans- 
port. How rich am I who have such a treasure as 
you ! You know me ; you know how to make me 
happy, and you do it most effectually. God bless 
you with 

" Long life, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend !" 

To-morrow night, according to your own direction, 
I shall watch the window : 'tis the star that guides 
me to paradise. The great relish to all is, that 
Honour, that Innocence, that Religion, are the wit- 
nesses and guarantees of our happiness. " The 
Lord Godknoweth," and, perhaps, " Israel he shall 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 255 

know," my love and your merit. Adieu, Clarinda ! 
I am going to remember you in my prayers.* 

Sylvander. 

When Burns left Edinburgh in April 1788, he 
presented an elegant pair of drinking glasses to 
Clarinda, with the following verses. The glasses 
were carefully preserved by her, and often taken 
down from the open cupboard in her parlour, to 
show to strangers. They are now in possession of 
the Editor. 

TO CLARINDA, 

WITH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING GLASSES. 

Fair Empress of the Poet's soul, 
And Q,ueen of Poetesses, 
Clarinda, take this little boon, 
This humble pair of glasses; 

* Probably several letters written about this period are lost. 
During the month which the Poet spent in Edinburgh, after 
his visit to Ayrshire, more than four letters must have passed. 

With the exception of Letter XLVIL, none of the letters 
of Clarinda, after the Poet's departure, have come into pos- 
session of the Editor. 



256 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

And fill them high with generous juice, 
As generous as your mind, 
And pledge me in the generous toast, 
" The whole of humankind !" 

" To those who love us!" second fill, 
But not to those whom we love ; 
Lest we love those who love not us. 
A third, " To thee and me, love !" 



LETTER LIX. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

March 9th, 1789. 
Madam, — The letter you wrote me to Heron's 
carried its own answer in its bosom ; you forbade 
me to write you, unless I was willing to plead guilty 
to a certain indictment that you were pleased to bring 
against me. As I am convinced of my own inno- 
cence, and, though conscious of high imprudence 
and egregious folly, can lay my hand on my breast 
and attest the rectitude of my heart, you will par- 
don me, madam, if I do not carry mj^.co.^plaisance 
so far, as humbly to acquiesce in the na*te of Villain, 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 257 

merely out of compliment to your opinion ; much 
as I esteem your judgment, and warmly as I regard 
your worth. 

I have already told you, and I again aver it, that, 
at the period of time alluded to, I was not under the 

smallest moral tie to Mrs. B ; nor did I, nor 

could I then know, all the powerful circumstances 
that omnipotent necessity was busy laying in wait 
for me. When you call over the scenes that have 
passed between us, you will survey the conduct of 
an honest man, struggling successfully with tempta- 
tions, the most powerful that ever beset humanity, 
and preserving untainted honour, in situations where 
the austerest virtue would have forgiven a fall : sit- 
uations that, I will dare say, not a single individual 
of all his kind, even with half his sensibihty and pas- 
sion, could have encountered without ruin ; and I 
leave you to guess, madam, how such a man is likely 
to digest an accusation of perfidious treachery. 

Was I to blame, madam, in being the distracted 
victim of charms which, I affirm it, no man ever 
approached with impunity ? Had I seen the least 
ghmmering of hope that these charms could ever have 

been mine ; or even had not iron necessity But 

these are unavaihng words. 



258 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

I would have called on you when I was in town, 
indeed I could not have resisted it, but that Mr. 
Ainslie told me, that you were determined to avoid 
your windows while I was in town, lest even a glance 
of me should occur in the street. 

When I shall have regained your good opinion, 
perhaps I may venture to solicit your friendship ; but, 
be that as it may, the first of her sex I ever knew 
shall always be the object of my warmest good 
wishes. 



LETTER LX. 

SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

[Spring 0/^791.] 
I have, indeed, been ill, madam, this whole win- 
ter. An incessant headache, depression of spirits, 
and all the truly miserable consequences of a de- 
ranged nervous system, have made dreadful havoc 
of my health and peace. Add to all this, a line of 
life, into which I have lately entered, obliges me to 
ride, upon an average, at least two hundred miles 
every week. However, thank heaven, I am now 
greatly better in my health. * * * 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 259 

I cannot, will not, enter into extenuatory circum- 
stances; else I could show you how my precipitate, 
headlong, unthinking conduct, leagued with a con- 
juncture of unlucky events, to thrust me out of a 
possibility of keeping the path of rectitude : to 
curse me, by an irreconcilable war between my 
duty and my nearest wishes, and to damn me with 
a choice only of different species of error and mis- 
conduct. 

I dare not trust myself further with this subject. 
The following song is one of my latest productions ; 
and I send it you as I would do any thing else, be- 
cause it pleases myself. 

MY LOVELY NANCY. 

Tune,— 7%e Quaker's Wife. 

I. 

Thine am I, my faithful fair, 

Thine, my lovely Nancy ; 
Ev'ry pulse along my veins, 

Ev'ry roving fancy. 

IL 

To thy bosom lay my heart, 

There to throb and languish : 
Tho' despair had wrung its core, 

That would heal its anguish. 



260 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

III. 

Take away those rosy lips, 
Rich with balmy treasure ; 

Turn away thine eyes of love, 
Lest I die with pleasure. 

IV. 

What is life when wanting love ? 

Night without a morning : 
Love 's the cloudless summer sun. 

Nature gay adorning. 



LETTER LXI. 



SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

\AutumnofVi^\:\ 

I have received both your last letters, madam, 
and ought, and would have answered the first, long 
ago. But on what subject shall I write you ? How 
can you expect a correspondent should write you, 
when you declare that you mean to preserve his 
letters, with a view, sooner or later, to expose them 
on the pillory of derision, and the rack of criticism ? 
This is gagging me completely, as to speaking the 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 261 

sentiments of my bosom; else, madam, I could, 
perhaps, too truly 

"Join grief with grief, and echo sighs to thine !" 

I have perused your most beautiful, but most 
pathetic Poem : do not ask me how often, or with 
what emotions. You know that " I dare to sin, 
but not to /le." Your verses wring the confession 
from my inmost soul, that — I will say it, expose it 
if you please — that, I have, more than once in my 
life, been the victim of a damning conjuncture of 
circumstances; and that to me you must be ever 

" Dear as the light that visits those sad eyes." 

I have just, since I had yours, composed the 
following stanzas. Let me know your opinion of 
them : 

Sweet sensibility, how charming, 

Thou, my Friend, canst truly tell; 
But how Distress, with horrors arming, 

Thou, alas ! hast known too well ! 

Fairest Flower, behold the lil}^, 

Blooming in the sunny ray ; 
Let the blast sweep o'er the valley, 

See it prostrate on the clav. 

12* 



262 CLARDDA TO SYLVANDER. 

Hear the wood-lark charm the forest, 

Telling o'er his little joys ; 
But, alas ! a prey the surest 

To each pirate of the skies. 

Dearly bought the hidden treasure, 

Finer feelings can bestow : 
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure 
Thrill the deepest notes of wo. 

1 have one other piece in your taste ; but I have 
just a snatch of time. 



LETTER LXII. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

[November, 1791.] 

Sir, — I take the liberty of addressing a few lines 
in behalf of your old acquaintance, Jenny Clow, 
who, to all appearance, is at this moment dying. 
Obliged, from all the symptoms of a rapid decay, to 
quit her service, she is gone to a room almost with- 
out common necessaries, untended and unmourned. 
In circumstances so distressing, to whom can she so 
naturally look for aid as to the father of her child, 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 263 

the man for whose sake she has suffered many 
a sad and anxious night, shut from the world, with 
no other companions than guilt and solitude? You 
have now an opportunity to evince you indeed pos- 
sess those fine feelings you have delineated, so as to 
claim the just admiration of your country. I am 
convinced I need add nothing farther to persuade 
you to act as every consideration of humanity as 
well as gratitude must dictate. I am, sir, your 
sincere well-wisher, 

A. M. 



LETTER LXIir. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Dumfries, 23d Novemher^ 1791 . 

It is extremely difficult, ray dear madam, for me 
to deny a lady any thing ; but to a lady, whom I 
regard with all the endearing epithets of respectful 
esteem and old friendship, how shall I find the lan- 
guage of refusal 1 I have, indeed, a shade of the 
lady, which I keep, and shall ever keep in the 
sanctum sanctorum of my most anxious care. That 



264 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

lady, though an unfortunate and irresistible con- 
juncture of circumstances has lost me her esteem, 
yet she shall be ever, to me ' 

" Dear as the ruddy drops that*warm my heart." 

I am rather anxious for her sake, as to her -voyage. 
I pray God my fears may be groundless. By the 
way, I have this moment a letter from her, with a 
paragraph or two conceived in so stately a style, 
that I would not pardon it in any created being 
except herself; but, as the subject interests me 
much, I shall answer it to you, as I do not know 
her present address. I am sure she must have 
told you of a girl, a Jenny Clow, who had the 
misfortune to make me a father, with contrition 
I own it, contrary to the laws of our most excellent 
constitution, in our holy Presbyterian hierarchy. 

Mrs. M tells me a tale of the poor girl's dis- 
tress that makes my very heart weep blood. I will 
trust that your goodness will apologize to your deli- 
cacy for me, when I beg of you, for Heaven's sake, 
to send a porter to the poor woman — Mrs. M., it 
seems, knows where she is to be found — with five 
shillings in my name ; and, as I shall be in Edin- 
burgh on Tuesday first, for certain, make the poor 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 265 

wench leave a line for me, before Tuesday, at Mr. 
Mackay's, White Hart Inn, Grass-Market, where I 
shall put up ; and, before I am two hours in town, 
I shall see the poor girl, and try what is to be done 
for her relief I would have taken my boy from 
her long ago, but she would never consent. 

I shall do myself the very great pleasure to call 
for you when I come to town, and repay you the 
sum your goodness shall have advanced. * * * 
* * * and most obedient, 

Robert Burns. 



LETTER LXIV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 
LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

A BALLAD. 
I. 

Now Nature hangs her mantle green, 

On every blooming tree, 
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 

Out o'er the grassy lea ; 



266 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams, 
And glads the azure skies ; 

But nought can glad the careful wight 
That fast in durance lies. 

II. 

Now laverocks wake the merry morn, 

Aloft on dewy wing ; 
The merle, in his noontide bower, 

Makes a' the echoes ring ; 
The mavis mild wi' many a note 

Sings drowsy day to rest : 
In love and freedom they rejoice, 

Wi' care nor thrall opprest. 

III. 

Now blooms the lily by the bank, 

The primrose doun the brae ; 
The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 

And milk-white is the slae : 
The meanest hind in fair Scotland 

May rove thae sweets among ; 
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland, 

Maun lie in prison strong. 

IV. 

I was the Q,ueen of bonny France, 
Where happy I hae been ; 

Fu' lightly rose I on the morn, 
As blithe lay doun at e'en : 



SYLVANDER TO CLARTNDA. 267 

And I'm the Sovereign of Scotland, 

And mony a traitor there ! 
Yet here I lie, in foreign bands 

And never-ending care. 

V. 

But as for thee, thou false woman. 

My sister and my fae. 
Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword 

That thro' thy soul shall gae. 
The weeping blood in woman's breast, 

Was never known to tliee ; 
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of wae, 

Frae woman's pitying e'e. 

VI 

My son, my son, may kinder stars 

Upon thy fortune shine ; 
And may those pleasures gild thy reign. 

That ne'er would blink on mine ! 
Heaven shield thee frae thy mother's faes. 

Or turn their hearts to thee : 
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, 

Remember him for me. 

VII. 

O, soon to me may summer suns, 

Nae mair light up the morn ! 
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds 

Wave o'er the vellow corn I 



268 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

But in the narrow house o' death 
Let winter o'er me rave ; 
...And the next flowers that deck the spring 
Bloom on my peaceful grave ! 

Such, my dearest Clarinda, were the words of 
the amiable but unfortunate Mary. Misfortune 
seems to take a peculiar pleasure, in darting her 
arrows against " honest men and bonny lasses." 
Of this, you are too, too just a proof; but may 
your future fate be a bright exception to the re- 
mark! In the words of Hamlet, 

" Adieu, adieu, adieu ! Remember me." 

Sylvander. 

Leadhills, Thursday^ JVoon^ [11th December, 1791] 



LETTER LXV. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Dumfries, [Idth December, 1791.] 

I have some merit, my ever dearest of women, in 
attracting and securing the heart of Clarinda. In 
her I met with the most accomplished of all woman- 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 269 

kind, the first of all God's works ; and yet I, even I, 
had the good fortune to appear amiable in her sight. 

By the by, this is the sixth letter that I have writ- 
ten you since I left you ; and if you were an ordi- 
nary being, as you are a creature very extraordinary 
— an instance of what God Almighty in the pleni- 
tude of his power, and the fullness of his goodness, 
can make ! — I would never forgive you for not 
ansv%^ering my letters. 

I have sent in your hair, a part of the parcel you 
gave me, with a measure, to Mr. Bruce the jeweller 
in Princes Street, to get a ring done for me. I have 
likewise sent in the verses On Sensibility, altered to 

" Sensibility how charming, 
Dearest Nancy, thou canst tell," «fec., 

to the Editor of the Scots Songs, of which you have 
three volumes, tQ set to a most beautiful air ; out of 
compliment to the first of women, my ever-beloved, 
my ever-sacred Clarinda. I shall probably write 
you to-morrow. In the meantime, from a man who 
is literally drunk, accept and forgive ! 

R. B. 



270 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 



LETTER XLVI. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

Dumfries, 27th December^ 1791. 

I have yours, my ever dearest madam, this mo- 
ment. I have just ten minutes before the post goes ; 
and these I shall employ, in sending you some songs 
I have just been composing to different tunes, for 
the Collection of Songs, of which you have three 
volumes, and of which you shall have the fourth. 

SONG. 

Tune — Rory DalVs Port. 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 

Ae fareweel, and then for ever ! 

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, 
While the star of hope she leaves him ! 
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me ; 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
Naething could resist my Nancy : 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 271 

But to see her, was to love her ; 
Love but her, and love for ever. 

Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly I 
Never met — or never parted. 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest ! 
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, 
Peace, Enjoyment, Love, and Pleasure ! 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 

Ae fareweel, alas, for ever ! 

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.* 

* The fourth stanza Byron put at the head of his poem of 
the Bride of Abydos. Scott has remarked that it is worth a 
thousand romances ; and Mrs. Jameson has elegantly said, 
that not only are these lines what Scott says, "But in ?Aem- 
5cZz7es a complete romance. They are," she adds, " the aZ- 
pha and omega of feeling, and contain the essence of an ex- 
istence of pain and pleasure, distilled into one burning drop." 
— Chambers. 

Rory, or Roderick Dall, was a celebrated blind Highland 
harper. Port, in Gaelic, signifies a plaintive strain of music. 



272 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

SONG. 

To an old Scots Tune. 

Behold the hour, the boat, arrive ! 
My dearest Nancy, O fareweel ! 
Sever'd frae thee, can I survive, 
Frae thee whom I hae loved sae weel ? 

Endless and deep shall be my grief; 
Nae ray o' comfort shall I see ; 
But this most precious, dear belief! 
That thou wilt still remember me. 

Alang the solitary shore. 
Where fleeting sea-fowl round me cry, 
Across the rolling, dashing roar, 
I'll westward turn my wistful eye : 

Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say. 
Where now my Nancy's path shall be ! 
While thro' your sweets she holds her way, 
O tell me, does she muse on me ! ! ! 

SONG. 

To a charming plaintive Scots Mr. 

Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December ! 
Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
Sad was the parting thou mak'st me remember. 
Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair ! 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDEK. 273 



Fond lovers' parting is sweet, painful pleasure, 
Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour ; 
But the dire feeling, oh, farewell for ever ! 
Anguish unmingled and agony pure ! 

The rest of this song is on the wheels. 
Adieu. Adieu. 

Sylvander. 

The poet afterwards added the following verses : — 

Wild as the winter now tearing the forest. 
Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown, 
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom. 
Since my last hope and last comfort is gone ! 

Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 
Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
For sad was the parting thou mak'st me remember, 
Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair. 



LETTER XLVII. 

CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 

2oth January^ 1792. 

Agitated, hurried to death, I sit down to write a 
few lines to you, my ever dear, dear friend ! We 



274 CLARIiNDA TO SYLVANUER. 

are ordered aboard on Saturday, — to sail on Sunday. 
And now, my dearest sir, I have a few things to 
say to you, as the last advice of her, who could have 
lived or died with you ! I am happy to know of 
your applying so steadily to the business you have 
engaged in ; but, oh remember, this life is a short, 
passing scene ! Seek God's favour, — keep His 
Commandments, — be solicitous to prepare for a 
happy eternity ! There, I trust, w^e will meet, in 
perfect and never-ending bliss. Read my former 
letters attentively : let the religious tenets there ex- 
pressed sink deep, into your mind ; meditate on them 
with candour, and your accurate judgment must be 
convinced that they accord with the words of Eternal 
Truth! Laugh no more at holy things, or holy 
men : remember, " without holiness, no man^ shall 
see God." Another thing, and I have done : as 
you value my peace, do not write me to Jamaica, 
until I let you know you may with safety. Write 
Mary often. She feels for you ! and judges of your 
present feelings by her owm. I am sure you will be 
happy to hear of my happiness : and I trust you 
will — soon. If there is time, you may drop me a 
line ere I go, to inform me if you get this, and an- 



CLARINDA TO SYLVANDER. 275 

other letter I wrote you, dated the 21st, which I am 
afraid of having been neglected to be put into the 
office. 

So it was the Roselle you were to have gone in ! 
I rea 1 your letter to-day, and reflecte 1 deeply on 
the ways of Heaven ! To us they oft appear dark 
and doubtful ; but let us do our duty faithfully, and, 
sooner or later, we will have our reward, because 
" the Lord God Omnipotent reigns :" every upright 
mind has here cause to rejoice — and now, adieu. 
May Almighty God bless you and yours ! take you 
into His blessed favour here, and afterwards receive 
you into His glory ! 

Farewell. I will ever remain 

Your real friend, 

A.M. 



Burns's thoughts often reverted to his fair friends and 
Edinburgh society. In February, 1792, Mrs. M'Lehose 
sailed for Jamaica, about two months after the Poet's 
final interview with her. In the course of the ensuing 
summer, he bewailed her absence in the following pas- 
toral : — . 



276 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

MY NANNIE'S AWA'. 
Tune — There'll never be peace, «^c. 

I. 

Now in her green mantle blithe Nature arrays, 
^nd listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, 
While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw ; 
But to me its delightless— my Nannie's av/a'. 

II. 

The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn. 
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn ; 
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, 
They mind me o' Nannie — and Nannie's awa'. 

III. 

Thou laverock that springs frae the dews of the lawn. 
The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn ; 
And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa', 
Give over for pity — my Nannie's awa'. 

IV. 

Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and gray. 
And soothe me with tidings o' Nature's decay : 
The dark dreary winter and wild driving snaw 
Alanecan delight me — now Nannie's awa'. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 277 



LETTER LXVIII. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[Jiitumn of 1792.] 

I suppose, my dear madam, that by your ne- 
glecting to inform me of your arri\al in Europe, 
— a circumstance that could not be indifferent to 
me, as, indeed, no occurrence relating to you can, — 
you meant to leave me to guess and gather that 
a correspondence I once had the honour and felicity 
to enjoy, is to be no more. Alas ! what heavy- 
laden sounds are these — " No more !" The wretch 
who has never tasted pleasure, has never known 
wo ; what drives the soul to madness, is the recol- 
lection of joys that are " no more !" But this is not 
language to the world : they do not understand it. 
But come, ye few, — the children of Feeling and Sen- 
timent ! — ye whose trembling bosom-chords ache to 
unutterable anguish, as recollection gushes on the 
heart ! — ye who are capable of an attachment, keen 
as the arrow of Death, and strong as the vigour of 
immortal being,— come ! and your ears shall drink 
13 



278 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

a tale -But hush ! I must not, cannot tell it ; 

agony is in the recollection, and frenzy in the recital ! 

But, madam, — to^leavethe paths that lead to mad- 
ness, 1 congratulate your friends on your return ; 

and I hope that the precious health, v\hich Miss P. 
tells me is so much injured, is restored, or restoring. 
There is a fatality attends Miss Peacock's corres- 
pondence and mine. Two of my letters, it seems, she 
never received; and her last came while I was in 
Ayrshire, was unfortunately mislaid, and only found 
about ten days or a fortnight ago, on removing a desk 
of drawers. 

I present you a hook ; may I hope you will accept 
of it. I dare say you will have brought your books 
with you. The fourth volume of the Scots Songs is 
published. I will presume to send it you. Shall I hear 
from you ? But first hear me. No cold language — 
no prudential documents : I despise advice, and scorn 
control. If you are not to write such language, such 
sentiments as you know I shall wish, shall delight 
to receive, I conjure you, by wounded pride ! by 
ruined peace ! by frantic, disappointed passion ! by 
all the many ills that constitute that sum of human 
woes, a broken heart ! ! ! — to me be silent for ever. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 279 



LETTER LXIX. 

SYLVANDER to CLARINDA. 

[1793.] 

Before you ask me why I have not written you, 
first let me be informed by you, how I shall write 
you ? " In friendship," you say ; and I have many 
a time taken up my pen to try an epistle of " friend- 
ship" to you: but it will not do: 'tis like Jove 
grasping a pop-gun, after having wielded his thun- 
der. When I take up the pen, recollection ruins 
me. Ah! my ever dearest Clarinda ! Clarinda! 
What a host of memory's tenderest offspring crowd 
on my fancy at that sound ! But I must not indulge 
that subject. — You have forbid it. 

I am extremely happy to learn that your precious 
health is re-established, and that you are once more 
fit to enjoy that satisfaction in existence, which health 
alone can give us. My old friend Ainslie has indeed 
been kind to you. Tell him that I envy him the 
power of serving you. I had a letter from him a 
while ago, but it was so dry, so distant, so like a 



280 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 

card to one of his clients, that I could scarce bear to 
read it, and have not yet answered it. He is a good 
honest fellow, and can write a friendly letter, which 
would do equal honour to his head and his heart, as 
a whole sheaf of his letters which I have by me will 
witness ; and though Fame does not blow her 
trumpet at my approach nowy as she did then, when 
he first honoured me with his friendship, yet I am as 
proud as ever ; and when I am laid in my grave, I 
wish to be stretched at my full length, that I may 
occupy every inch of ground I have a right to. 

You would laugh were you to see me where I am 
just now. Would to Heaven you were here to 
laugh with me, though I am afraid that crying would 
be our first employment. Here am I set, a solitary 
hermit, in the solitary room of a solitary inn, with a 
solitary bottle of wine by me, as grave and as stupid 
as an owl, but, like that owl, still faithful to my old 
song ; in confirmation of which, my dear Mrs. Mac, 
here is your good health. May the hand-waled 
benisons o' Heaven bless your bonnie face ; and the 
wratch wha skellies at your welfare, may the auld 
tinkler deil get him to clout his rotten heart I 
Amen. 



SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA.. 281 

You must know, my dearest madam, that these 
now many years, wherever I am, in whatever com- 
pany, when a married lady is called as a toast, I 
constantly give you ; but, as your name has never 
passed my lips, even to my most intimate friend, I 
give you by the name of Mrs. Mac. This is so well 
known among my acquaintances, that when any 
married lady is called for, the toast-master will say — 
" 0, we need not ask him who it is : here's Mrs. 
Mac!" I have also among my convivial friends, 
set on foot a round of toasts, which I call a round of 
Arcadian Shepherdesses ; that is a round of favourite 
ladies, under female names celebrated in ancient 
song; and then you are my Clarinda. So, my 
lovely Clarinda, I devote this glass of wine to a 
most ardent wish for your happiness. 

In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer, 
Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear: 
Above that world on wings of love I rise, 
I know its worst, and can that worst despise. 

" Wrong'd, injured, shunned, unpitied, unredrest ; 
The mocked quotation of the scorner's jest"— 
Let Prudence' direst bodements on me fall, 
Clarinda, rich reward ! o'erpays them all. 



282 SYLVANDER TO CLARINPA. 

I have been rhyming a little of late, but I do not 
know if they are worth postage. 

Tell me what you think of the following monody. 

Hf * * * * 

The subject of the foregoing is a woman of 
fashion in this country, with whom at one period I 
"was well acquainted. By some scandalous conduct 
to me, and two or three other gentlemen here as 
well as me, she steered so far to the north of my 
good opinion, that I have made her the theme of 
several ill-natured things. The following epigram 
struck me the other day as I passed her carriage. 
# * * * * 

[The Monody, Epitaph, and Epigram, which 
Burns lived to regret having written, are printed in 
his Works.] 



APPENDIX 



iHra. &LV€tl)03ts Jngitbe IJoetrg. 



APPENDIX. 



The following fugitive Pieces are all that remain of the 
Poetry of Mrs. M^Lehose. 

TO A BLACKBIRD SINGING ON A TREE. 

Morningside^ 1784. 
Go on, sweet bird, and soothe my care, 
Thy cheerful notes will hush despair ; 
Thy tuneful warblings, void of art, 
Thrill sweetly through my aching heart. 
Now choose thy mate and fondly love. 
And all the charming transport prove; 
Those sweet emotions all enjoy, 
Let Love and Song thy hours employ ; 
Whilst I, a love-lorn exile, live, 
And rapture nor receive nor give. 
Go on, sweet bird, and soothe my care, 
Thy cheerful notes will hush despair.* 

* Burns added four lines to this song, and having " pruned its [the Black- 
bird's] wings a little," (see Letter XXXVII.) inserted it in Joh7isov?s Musi- 
cal Museum. 

13* 



286 TO MR. AINSLIE. 



TO MR. AINSLIE, 

ON HIS LEAVING A VISITING CARD ON CHRISTMAS-DAT, 
AFTER HAVING BEEN A GREAT STRANGER. 

Canongate^ 1790. 

Full many a Christmas have I seen, 

But ne'er saw this before — 
One's dear and always welcome friend 

A card leave at the door. 
Such ceremony sure bespeaks 

A friendship in the wane : 
Friendshipj dear tie, when once it breaks, 

Is seldom knit again. 
Then fare-ye-well, my once dear friend, 

And happy may you be ; 
May all your future hours be blest 

Like those you've spent with me ! 



EPITAPH ON MY GRANDCHILD'S CAT. 

Poor Puss is dead ! and William weeps, 

Refuses food, and hardly sleeps. 

Bemoaning o'er her early fate, 

His blithe companion air and late. 

Secure in his encircling arm, 

He deemed her safe from every harm, 



ON THE LOSS OF MY CHILD. 287 

Frisking around him all the day, 
In lively gambols, sport, and play j 
At night when stretched on carpet-rug. 
Could scarce resist his kindly tug. 
Why, grisly Death, didst thou appear, 
So soon to stop her gay career ? 
For she was sleekit, soft, and fair ; 
Grimalkin, sweet ! of virtues rare ! 
Caress'd, alternate, by each boy, 
Their morning care, their evening joy. 
Now cold she lies ! The youthful tear 
Embalms poor Pussy's mournful bier. 
But, dry your eyes, my lovely boys, 
Life has for you a store of joys. 



ON THE LOSS OF MY CHILD, 1788. 

Does Heaven behold these sadly-falling tears, 
Shed by a mother o'er her darling child ? 

Ah, blasted hopes ! and heart-distracting fears. 
That fill my breast with frantic sorrow wild ! 

Yes, Heaven beholds ; from thence the stroke descends, 
And Heaven alone can heal the wounds it gave. 

Oh, Thou, who dost afflict for gracious ends, 
Lead my sad soul to scenes beyond the grave. 



288 ON THE AUTUMN OF LIFE. 

'Tis there alone all tears are wiped away ; 

There death-divided friends shall part no more. 
Oh, Thou Supreme ! whose years know no delay, 

Teach me thy dispensations to adore. 



ON THE AUTUMN OF LIFE. 

Hail, pensive season ! autumn of our days ! 

Though youth be past, and vivid pleasures o'er, 

Thou showerest down thy precious fruits of wisdom. 

Making us pause upon those mingled scenes 

Of bliss and wo, that mark our passing state. 

How oft the mind of sensibility 

Recalls, in sadly-pleasing retrospect, 

" The things that were," and must return no more ; 

The parents dear, who rear'd our early life ; 

The early friend, on whose fond breast we lean'd; 

Or innocent, smiling babes, whose sweet endearments. 

Twining around our hearts, have left a void, 

Which nought but Heaven itself can e'er supply. 

But, though our pleasing spring of life be past. 

Autumn commenced, and winter full in view, 

That sombre season to the feeling mind 

Yields chastened joys to sprightly youth unknown : 

Reflection's calm but solitary hours. 

Passion subdued, and Friendship's tranquil joys. 



TO MR. JAMES GRAY. 289 

The mind matured reviews her mental stores, 
Her knowledge, high capacities, and powers — 
Contemplates Nature in each varying form ; 
But chiefly human character in all 
Its shades and wonderful diversities ; 
Soars to the great First Cause ; beholds in Him 
Wisdom supreme, and Goodness infinite ; 
Resigns the world, and leans, with confidence, 
Upon the Rock of Ages. 



TO MR. JAMES GRAY, 

OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, 



Who had asked my opinion of a beautiful Ode he had just published, along 
with my Lines on a Linnet, which he had requested. 

My dear Mr. Gray, have patience, I pray. 

While perusing my poor little Linnet; 

Though pretty it seem, 'tis a trifling theme. 

And you really will find little in it. 

But your Ode so sublime, one Parnassus might climb, 

And yet not produce such another. 

One blemish to find, I have puzzled my mind ; 

And, save one, it is good altogether. 

Philosophers deem Life's joys all a dream ; 

But I ne'er heard its woes were eternal. 

Bliss eternal above, we. all hope to prove : 

Leave the other to regions infernal. 



290 ON THE DEATH OF A LINNET. 



ON THE DEATH OF MRS. RIDLEY'S LINNET. 

CanongatCy 1791. 

Alas, poor bird ! art thou no more ? 
What language can thy loss deplore, 
Thou who wast wont to be caress'd. 
Thy bed prepared, thy cage well dress'd, 
Thy drink so limpid, seed so rare, 
Provided by poor Granum's care. 
No more thou'lt hail the rising day. 
No more thoul't chirp, or hop, or play, 
Or eye the family askance 
At Johnny's song, or Betsy's dance. 
Yet, ah ! how blest thy little span, 
Compared with that of hapless man. 
Pleased to the last, thou hopp'd and sung, 
No cares thy little bosom wrung ; 
No retrospect of evil past. 
Anticipation's withering blast, 
Malice' sharp tooth, or Envy's sting. 
E'er hush'd thy song, or shrunk thy wing. 
These demons were to thee unknown, 
They haunt superior man alone. 
Perhaps thy gentle spirit's lent 
To inform some little, straggling ant ; 
Or in a bee, midst fragrant bowers. 
Extracting sweets from blushing flowers ; 



ON LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. 291 

Or borne aloft o'er hill and dale, 
Sings out in some sweet nightingale. 
Where'er thou art, sweet bird, farewell ! 
In peace and safety may'st thou dwell ; 
Whilst I thy praises will rehearse. 
And save thy memory in my verse. 



ANSWER TO MRS. SAVILLE'S QUERY— 

"TO LOVE CAN ANY THING BE A LABOUR?" 

To mutual love nought can a labour be, 
Where all is peace, and joy, and harmony. 
Love unrequited labour all must prove. 
Since Nature whispers, " Give me love for love. 
Our kind exertions, whatsoe'er they cost, 
Oh, may we never find Love's labour lost. 



ON LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. 

Talk not of Love! it gives me pain — 

For love has been my foe : 
He bound me with an iron chain, 

And plunged me deep in wo t 



292 TO MR. ARCHIBALD MENZIES. 

But Friendship's pure and lasting joys 
My heart was formed to prove — 

The worthy object be of those, 
But never talk of Love. 

The " Hand of Friendship " I accept — 
May Honour be our guard, 

Virtue our intercourse direct, 
Her smiles our dear reward. 

Your thought, if Love must harbour there, 
Conceal it in that thought, 

Nor cause me from my bosom tear 
The very friend I sought. 



TO MR. ARCHIBALD MENZIES. 

Canongate, 1791. 

My dear and ever much respected friend, 

Will you to-night a select few attend ? 

To see old Shakespeare's Hamlet tread the stage. 

Hear the pale Ghost the Queen's sad doom presage ■ 

Mourn o'er Ophelia's lost distracted state, 

Admire the Prince midst wild confusion great ; 

At each fine stroke throughout the churchyard scene, 

Own that Immortal Shakespeare must remain. 



TO MISS AIKEN. 293 

TO MISS AIKEN. 

EXTEMPORE. 

Canongate^ 1791. 

What we feel our bosom doing, 
When upon the brink of ruin, 
Is the name of her I love, — 
Shield her all ye powers above ! 



I LiBR.\RY ' 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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